Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2022 with funding from 
Duke University Libraries 


https://archive.org/details/weariedchrist01 macl 


7 


if 
SowreaLhed 


ba ed) 


we 
he £. ho How 


HE WEARIED 
CHRIST +s se 
AND OTHER SERMONS by 
Alexander Maclaren p.p. 


FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY 


NEW YORK 


- ie > 
\ . = r 
y . 
‘ 
‘ 
. 
) : 
~ = ¥ 
{ 
ae 


CONTENTS. 


I, PAGE 
THE WEARIED CHRIST 4. a= 


ees oot oa = 1 


“Jesus therefore, being wesried with Vis journey, gat 
thus on the weil.” 


“He said unto them, I have meat to eat that ye know 
not of.”—JOHN iv. 6 and 32. 


I. 


CHRIST’s FINISHED AND UNFINISHED WORK one re 9 


“The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all 
that Jesus began both to do and teach, until the day 
in which He was taken up.”—ActTs i. 1, 2. 

“And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired 
house, and received all that came in unto him, 
preaching the Kingdom of God, and teaching those 
things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with 
all confidence, no man forbidding him.”—Aots 
Xxviii. 30, 31. 


Ti. 
Tar RESURRECTION AS A FOUNDATION FAOT OF THE GOSPEL 21 


“T delivered unto you first of all that which I also 
received, how that Christ died for our sins according 
to the Scriptures ; and that He was buried, and that 
He rose again the third day according to the Scrip- 
tures.”—1 Cor. xv. 3, 4. 


iv CONTENTS. 


IV, 
THE Devout Heart DEryiIna DEATH eee ove see 
“Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth : 
my flesh also shall rest in hope. For Thou wilt not 
leave my soul in hell; neither wilt Thou suffer 
Thine Holy One to see corruption. Thou wilt show 
me the path of life; in Thy presence is fulness of 
joy; at Thy right hand there are pleasures for ever- 
more.”—Pg, xvi. 9—11. 


Vv. 
PHILIP THE EVANGELIST om we op ee ane 


“But Philip was found at Avotus: and passing through 
he preached in all the cities, till he came to Caesarea.” 
—ACcTs viii, 40. 


VL 
THH MARTYRDOM OF JAMES ... aes ave ooo eee 


“Herod killed James, the brother of John, with the 
sword,”—AOTS xii. 2. 


VII. 
WHOSE IMAGE AND SUPERSCRIPTION f cua |! agate 
“Whose image and superscription hath it?”—Luxs 
xx. 24, 
VIL. 


How To WoRK THE WoRK OF GOD .. eee ooo too 


“Then said they unto Him, What shall we do, that we 
might work the works of God? Jesus answered 
and said unto them, This is the work of God, that 
ye believe on Him whom He hath sent.”—JOHN vi. 
28, 29. 


PAGE 


42 


CONTENTS. 


rx. 
Tae GIFT AND THE GIVER oe “=< a -- =! 


“ Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the 
gift of God, and who it is that saith unto thee, Give 
Me to drink, thou wouldst have asked of Him, and 
He would have given thee living water.” —JoHN 
iy. 10. 


x. 
CHRIST AT THE DOOR 1 = see eee sce ose 
“Behold! I stand at the door and knock ; if any man 
hear My voice, and oper the door, I will come in to 
him, and will sup with him, and he with Me.”— 
REV. iii. 20. 
XL. 
EXCUSES NOT REASONS ... = ace eos oe one 
“They all with one consent began to make excuse.”— 
LUKE xiv. 18, 
XIL 
THE GREAT PROOLAMATION eos — <= — ate 


“Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, 
and he that hath no money ; come ye, buy, and eat; 
yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and 
without price.”—Isa. ly. 1. 


xTL 


UNBELIEVING BELIEF... = eee = == sas 


“ And straightway the father of the child cried out, and 
said with tears, Lord, I believe; help Thou mine 
unbelief.” —MARK ix, 24. 


XIV, 
THe SLUGGARD IN HARVEST... se oo a aaa 


“The sluggard will not plough by reason of the cold; 
therefore shall he beg in harvest and have nothing.” 
—PROVEBBS xx. 4. 


PAGE 


91 


102 


113 


125 


vi CONTENTS. 


XV. PAGE 
SIMPLICITY TOWARDS CHRIST ... nee ace ado oo «=—148 
“T fear lest by any means your minds should be cor- 
rupted from the simplicity that is in Ohrist.”— 
2 Cor. xi. 3. 
XVI. 
THE RACE AND THE GOAL a cal eee ooo eo 158 


“This one thing I do, forgetting those things which are 
behind, and reaching forth unto those things which 
are before, I press toward the mark for the prize,”— 
PHIL. iii. 13, 14, 


XVIL 
Gop’s ScruTINY LONGED FOR ... eae aS ooo coe 170 


“Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and 
know my thoughts : and see if there be any wicked 
way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” — 
PSALM cxxxix. 23, 24. 


XVIII. 
CuRist’s TRADERS... see vas eee ach eo. 180 


“ And he called his ten wicca and delivered them ten 
pounds, and said unto them, Occupy till I come,”— 
LUKE xix. 18, 


xix. 


ForM AND POWER... cre aaa or one aE a (191 


“Having the form of godliness, but denying the power 
thereof.” —2 Ti. iii, 5. 


xx. 
Hip In LIGHT wo ose “oe ~=, are oo aa ‘201 
“Thou shalt hide them in the secret of Thy presence 
from the pride of man: Thou shalt keep them 


secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues,”— 
Ps, xxxi. 20. 


CONTENTS. 


XXL 
FULL oF Joy AND oF THE Hoty GHosT ... = 
“The eunuch went on his way rejoicing.” —ACTS viii. 39, 
“The disciples were filled with joy, and with the Holy 
Ghost.”—ActTs xiii. 52 


xxii, 
PILATE WASHING HIS HANDS ... eco eco ooo one 
« Pilate . . took water, and washed his hands 


before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the 
blood of this just person: see ye to it.’-—MatTT 
xxvii. 24. 
XXIil. 
Two RETROSPECTS OF ONE LIFE ue ove woo ate 


* And Jacob said unto Pharaoh, Few and evil have the 
days of the years of my life been.”—GEN. xlvii. 9. 


“The God which fed me all my life long unto this day ; 
the angel which redeemed me from all evil.’—GrEn. 
xlviii. 15, 16. 
XXIV. 
THE Two GUESTS... sce) Ae tgealid Meeny: . > (sven wee! y Coss 


“His anger endureth but a moment, in His favour is 
life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy 
cometh in the morning.” —Ps, xxx. 5, 


XXV. 


THE WAVES OF TIME .. een ‘ae “ey ve a5 
“The times that went over him.”—] CHRon. xxix. 30. 


XXVIL. 
THE CHUROH AND SocraL EVILS one fag * a 


“Tt came to pass, when I heard these worun, uhat I sat 
down and wept, and mourned certain days, and 


fasted, and prayed before the God of heaven.”—- 


Newemiasg i. 4. 


222 


233 


241 


258 


viii CONTENTS. 


XXVII. 
OnE SAYING FROM THREE MEN aoa seo eee wae 


“The wicked hath said in his heart, I shall not be 
moved.”—PSALM x. 6. 


“ Because He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.” 
—PSALM xvi. 8. 


“ And in my prosperity I said, I shall never be moved.” 
—PSALM xxx. 6. 


XXVIIL 
FEASTING ON THE SACRIFICE ... Se ae se eae 
“The meek ghall eat and be satisfied."—Ps. xxi. 26. 


XXIx. 
THE DISMISSAL OF JUDAS coe Fe on ooo ne 


“Then said Jesus unto Judas, That thou doest, do 
quickly."—JOuN xiii. 27. 


XXX. 
SALVATION ANI) DESTRUCTION CONTINUOUS PROCESSES ... 


“The preaching of the Cross is to them that perish 
foolishness, but unto us which are saved it is the 
power of God.’—1 Cor. i. 18. 


XXXI. . 
THE FAITHFUL HEART AND THE PRESENT GoD ... eos 


«J have set the Lord always before me: because He is 
at my :izht hand, I shall not be moved.”—PsaLM 
xvi. & 


PAGE 
268 


276 


286 


296 


306 


L 
Che Wearied Christ, 


“Jzsus therefore, being wearied with His journey, sat thus on the 
well,” 


“He eaid unto them, I have meat to eat that ye know not of.”—= 
JOHN iv. 6 and 32, 


Ji) WO pictures result from these two verses, 
VAM) each striking in itself, and gaining 
WHA additional emphasis by the contrast. 
KGENAY. 

\ ne SAN It was near the close of a long, hot 
i ——~ day’s march that a tired band of 
pedestrians turned into the fertile valley. There, 
whilst the disciples went into the little hill-village to 
purchase, if they could, some food from the despised 
inhabitants, Jesus, apparently too exhausted to ac- 
company them, “sat thus on the well.” That little 
word thus seems to have a force difficult to reproduce 
in English. It is apparently intended to enhance 
the idea of utter weariness, either because the word 
“wearied” is in thought to be supplied, “sat, being 
thus wearied, on the well”; or because it conveys the 
notion which might be expressed by our “just as He 
was”; as a tired man flings himself down anywhere 
and anyhow, without any kind of preparation before- 
hand, and not much caring where it is that he rests, 
; 1 


2 THE WEARIED CHRIST, 


Thus, utterly worn out, Jesus Christ sits on the 
well, whilst the western sun lengthens out the 
shadows on the plain. The disciples come back, and 
what a change they find! Hunger gone, exhaustion 
ended, fresh vigour in their wearied Master. What 
had made the difference? The woman's repentance 
and joy. And He unveils the secret of His reinvigor- 
ation when He says, “I have meat to eat' which ye 
know not of ”"—the hidden manna. “My meat is to do 
the will of Him that sent Me, and to finish His work.” 

Now, I think if we take just three points of view, 
we shall gain the lessons of this remarkable contrast, 
Note, then, the wearied Christ; the devoted Christ; 
the reinvigorated Christ. 

I.—The wearied Christ. 

How precious it is to us that this gospel, which has 
the loftiest things to say about the manifest Divinity 
of our Lord, and the glory that dwelt in Him, is 
always careful to emphasize also the manifest 
limitations and weaknesses of His Manhood! John 
never forgets either term of his great sentence in 
which all the gospel is condensed, “ the Word became 
flesh.” Ever he shows us “the Word”; ever “the 
flesh.” Thus it is he only who records the saying on 
the Cross, “I thirst.” It is he who tells us how Jesus 
Christ, not merely for the sake of getting a convenient 
opening of a conversation, or to conciliate prejudices, 
but because He needed what He asked, said to the 
woman of Samaria: “Give Me to drink.” So the 
weariness of the Master stands forth for us as pathetic 
proof that it was no shadowy investiture with an 
apparent Manhood to which He stooped, but a real 
participation in our limitations and weaknesses, so 


THE WEARIED CHRIST. 3 


that work to Him was fatigue, even though in Him 
dwelt the manifest glory of that Divine nature which 
“ fainteth not, neither is weary.” 

Not only does this pathetic incident teach us, for 
our firmer faith, and more sympathetic and closer 
apprehension, the reality of the Manhood of Jesus 
Christ, but it supplies likewise some imperfect measure 
of His love, and reveals to us one condition of His 
power. Ah! If He had not Himself known weariness, 
He never could have said, “Come unto Me, all ye that 
are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” 
It was because Himself “took our infirmities,” and 
amongst these the weaknesses of tired muscles and 
exhausted frame, that “He giveth power to the faint, 
and to them that hath no might He increaseth 
strength.” The Creator must have no share in the 
infirmities of the creature. It must be His unwearied 
power that calls them all by their names ; and because 
He is great in might “not one” of the creatures of 
His hand can “fail.” Butthe Redeemer must partici- 
pate in that from which He redeems ; and the condi- 
tion of His strength being “made perfect in our 
weakness” is that our weakness shall have cast a 
shadow upon the glory of Hisstrength. The measure 
of His love is seen in that, long before Calvary, He 
entered into the humiliation and sufferings and 
sorrows of humanity; a condition of His power is 
seen in that, forasmuch as the “children were par- 
takers of flesh and blood,” He also Himself likewise 
took part of the same, “not only that through death 
He might deliver” from death, but that in life He 
might redeem from the ills and sorrows of life. 

Nor does that exhausted Figure, reclining on 

e 1* 


4 THE WEARIED CHRIST. 


Jacob’s Well, preach to us only what He was. It 
proclaims to us likewise what we should be. For if 
His work was carried on to the edge of His capacities, 
and if He shrank not from service because it involved 
toil, what about the professing followers of Jesus 
Christ, who think that they are exempted from any 
form of service because they can plead that it will 
weary them? What about those who say that they 
tread in His footsteps, and have never known what it 
was to yield up one comfort, one moment of leisure, 
one thrill of enjoyment, or to encounter one sacrifice, 
one act of self-denial, one aching of weariness for the 
sake of the Lord that bore all for them? The wearied 
Christ proclaims His manhood, proclaims His divinity 
and His love, and rebukes us who consent to “walk 
in the way of His commandments” only on condition 
that it can be done without dust or heat; and who 
are ready to run the race that is set before us, only if 
we can come to the goal without perspiration or 
turning a hair. “Jesus, being wearied with His 
journey, sat thus on the well.” 

II.—Still further, notice here the devoted Christ. 

It is not often that He lets us have a glimpse into 
the innermost chambers of His heart, in so far as the 
impelling motives of His course are concerned. But 
here He lays them bare. “My meat is to do the will 
of Him that sent Me, and to finish His work.” 

Now, it is no mere piece of grammatical pedantry 
when I ask you to notice that the language of the 
original is so constructed as to give prominence to the 
idea that the aim of Christ’s life was the doing of the 
Father’s will; and that it is the aim rather than the 
actual performance and realization of the aim which 


THE WEHARIED CHRIST. 5 


is pointed at by our Lord. The words would be 
literally rendered, “ My meat is that I may do the will 
of Him that sent Me and finish His work ”—that is to 
say, the very nourishment and refreshment of Christ 
was found in making the accomplishment of the 
Father’s commandment His ever-impelling motive, 
His ever-pursued goal, The expression carries us into 
the inmost heart of Jesus, dealing, as it does, with the 
one all-pervading motive rather than with the result- 
ing actions, fair and holy as these were. 

Brethren, the secret of our lives, if they are at all 
to be worthy and noble, must be the same—the 
recognition, not only as they say now, that we have a 
mission, but that there 7s a Sender (which is a wholly 
different view of our position), and that He who sends 
is the loving Father, who has spoken to us in that 
dear Son, who Himself made it His aim thus to obey, 
in order that it might be possible for to us re-echo 
His voice, and to repeat His aim. The recognition of 
the Sender, the absolute submission of our wills to 
His, must run through all the life. You may do 
your daily work, whatever it be, with this for its 
motto, “The will of the Lord be done.” And they 
who thus can look at their trade, or profession, and 
see the trivialities and monotonies of their daily 
occupations, in the transfiguring light of that great 
thought, will never need to complain that life is small, 
ignoble, wearisome, insignificant. As with pebbles 
in some clear brook with the sunshine on it, the 
water in which they are sunk glorifies and magnifies 
them. If you lift them out, they are but bits of dull 
stone; lying beneath the sunlit ripples they are 
jewels. Plunge the prose of your life, and all its 


6 THE WEARIED CHRIST 


trivialities, into that great stream, and it will magnify 
and glorify the smallest and the homeliest. Absolute 
submission to the Divine will, and the ever-present 
thrilling consciousness of doing it, were the secret of 
Christ’s life, and ought to be the secret of ours. 

Note the distinction between doing the will and 
perfecting the work. That implies that Jesus Christ, 
like us, reached forward, in each successive act of 
obedience to the successive manifestations of the 
Father’s will, to something still undone. The work 
will never be perfected or finished except on condition 
of continual fulfilment, moment by moment, of the 
separate behests of that Divine will. For the Lord, 
as for His servants, this was the manner of obedience, 
that He “pressed towards the mark,” and by individual 
acts of conformity secured that at the last the whole 
“work” should have been so completely accomplished 
that He might be able to say upon the Cross, “It is 
finished.” Thus, if we have any right to call ourselves 
His, we, too, have to live. 

III.—Lastly, notice the reinvigorated Christ. 

I have already pointed out the lovely contrast 
between the two pictures, the beginning and the end 
of this incident ; so I need not dwell upon that. The 
disciples wondered when they found that Christ 
desired and needed none of the homely sustenance 
that they had brought to Him. And when He 
answered their sympathy rather than their curiosity 
—for they did not ask Him any questions, but they 
said to Him, “ Master, eat”—with “I have meat to 
eat that ye know not of,” they. in their blind, blunder- 
ing fashion, could only imagine that somebody had 
brought Him something. So they gave occasion 


THE WEARIED CHRIST. 7 


for the great words upon which we have been 
touching. 

Notice, however, that Christ here sets forth the 
lofty aim at conformity to the Divine will, and fulfil- 
ment of the Divine work, as being the meat of the soul. 
It is the true nourishment for us all. The spirit which 
feeds upon such food will grow and be nourished. 
And the soul which feeds upon its own will and 
fancies, and not upon the plain brown bread of 
obedience, which is wholesome, though it be often 
bitter, will feed upon ashes, which will grate upon 
' the teeth and hurt the palate. Such a soul will be 
like those wretched infants that you find sometimes 
at “baby-farms,” as people call them, starved and 
stunted, and not grown to half their right size. If 
you would have your spirits strong, robust, well- 
nourished—live by obedience, and let the will of God 
be the food of your souls, and all will be well. 

Souls thus fed can do without a great deal that 
others need Why, enthusiasm for anything lifts a 
_ man above physical necessities and lower desires, even 
in its poorest forms. A regiment of soldiers making 
a forced march, or athlete’s trying to break the 
record, will tramp, tramp on, not needing food, or rest, 
or sleep, until they have achieved their purpose, poor 
and ignoble though it may be. In all regions of life, 
enthusiasm and lofty aims make the soul lord of the 
body and of the world. 

And in the Christian life we shall be thus lords, 
exactly in proportion to the depth and earnestness of 
our desires to do the will of God. They who thus are 
fed can afford “to scorn delights and live laborious 
days.” They who thus are fed can afford to do with 


8 THE WEARIED CHRIST. 


* 


- plain living, if there be high impulses as well as high 
thinking. And sure I am that nothing is more 
certain to stamp out the enthusiasm of obedience, 
which ought to mark the Christian life, than the 
luxurious fashion of living which is getting so common 
to-day amongst professing Christians. 

It is not in vain that we have the old story about 
the children whose faces were radiant and whose flesh 
was firmer, when they were fed on pulse and water 
than were theirs who feasted on the wine and dainties 
of the Babylonish court. “Set a knife to thy throat 
if thou be a man given to appetite.” And let us re- 
member that the less we use, and the less we feel that 
we need, of outward goods, the nearer do we approach 
to the condition in which holy desires and lofty aims 
will visit our spirits. 

I commend to you, brethren, the story of our text, 
in almost its literal application, as well as in the 
loftier spiritual lessons that may be drawn from . 
To be near Christ, and to desire to live for Him, 
deliver us from dependence upon earthly things; and 
in those who thus do live the old word shall be ful- 
filled, “ Better is a little that a righteous man hath 
than the abundancejof many wicked.” 


IL 
Christ’s Finished and Unfinished Work. 


“Tux former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus 
began both to do and teach, until the day in which He was 
taken up.”—ActTs i. 1, 2. 

“And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house, and 
received all that came in unto him, preaching the Kingdom of 
God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus 
Christ, with all confidence, no man forbidding him.”—AotTs 
xxviii. 30, 31. 


O begins and so ends this book. I con- 
nect the commencement and the close, 
because I think that the juxtaposition 
throws great light upon the purpose of 
the writer, and suggests some very 

important lessons. The reference to “the former 

treatise” (which is, of course, the Gospel according to 

Luke) implies that this book is to be regarded as its 

sequel, and the terms of the reference show the 

writer’s own conception of what he was going to do 

in his second volume. “The former treatise have I 

made .. . ofall that Jesus began both to do and 

teach until the day in which He was taken up.” Is 
not the natural inference that the latter treatise will 
tell us what Jesus continued “to do and teach” after 

He was taken up? I think so, And thus the writer 


10 CHRIST'S FINISHED AND UNFINISHED WORE. 


sets forth at once, for those that have eyes to see, 
what he means to do, and what he thinks his book is 
going to be about. 

So, then, the name “ the Acts of the Apostles,” which 
is not coeval with the book itself, is somewhat of a 
misnomer. Most of the apostles are never heard of in 
it. There are, at the most, only three or four of them 
concerning whom anything is recorded. And our 
first text supplies a reason for regarding that title as 
inadequate, and even misleading. For, if the theme 
of the story be what Christ did, then the book is not 
the “Acts of the Apostles,” but the Acts of Jesus 
Christ through His servants. He, and He alone, is 
the Actor; and the men that appear are but the in- 
struments in His hands, He alone being the mover of 
the pawns on the board. 

That conception of the purpose of the “ treatise” 
seems to me to be confirmed by, and to explain, the 
singular abruptness of the conclusion which must 
strike every reader. No doubt it is quite possible 
that the reason why the book ends in such a singular 
fashion, planting Paul in Rome, and leaving him 
there, may be that the date of its composition was 
that imprisonment of Paul in the imperial city, in a 
part of which, at all events, we know that Luke was 
his companion. But, whilst that consideration may 
explain the point at which the record stops, it does not 
explain the way in which it stops. The historian lays 
down his pen, possibly because he had brought his 
narrative up to date. But a word of conclusion explain- 
ing that it was so would have been very natural, and its 
absence must have had some reason. It is also possible 
that the arrival of the Apostle in the imperial city 


CHRIST'S FINISHED AND UNFINISHED WORK. 11 


and his unhindered liberty of preaching there, in the 
very centre of power, the focus of intellectual life, and 
the hot-bed of corruption for the known world, may 
have seemed to the writer an epoch which rounded 
off his story. But I think that the reason for the 
abruptness of the record’s close is to be found in the 
continuity of the work of which it tells a part. It is the 
unfinished record of an incomplete work. The theme 
is the work of Christ through the ages, of which each 
successive depository of His energies can do but a 
small portion, and must leave that portion unfinished ; 
the book does not so much end as stop. It is a 
fragment, because the work of which it tells of is not 
yet a whole. 

If, then, we put these two things—the beginning 
and the ending of this book—together, I think we get 
some thoughts about what Christ began to do and 
teach on earth; what He continues to do and teach 
in heaven; and how small and fragmentary a share 
in that work each individual servant of His has. Let 
us look at these things briefly. 

I.—First, then, we have here the suggestion of what 
Christ began to do and teach on earth. 

Now, at first sight, the words of our text seem to 
be in strange and startling contradiction to the 
solemn cry which rang out of the darkness upon 
Calvary. Jesus said, “It is finished! and gave up the 
ghost.” Luke says He “began to do and teach.” Is 
there any contradiction between the two? Certainly 
not. It is one thing to Jay a foundation; it is another 
thing to build a house. And the work of laying the 
foundation must be finished before the work of build- — 
ing the structure upon it can be begun, It is one thing 


12 CHRIST'S FINISHED AND UNFINISHED WORK. 


to create a force; it is another thing to apply it. It is 
one thing to compound a medicine; it is another thing 
to administer it. It is one thing to unveil a truth; it is 
another thing to unfold its successive applications, and 
to work it into a belief and practice in the world. 
The former is the work of Christ which was finished 
on earth; the latter is the work which is continuous 
throughout the ages. 

“He began to do and teach,” not in the sense that 
any should come after Him and (as the disciples of 
most great discoverers and thinkers have had to do) 
systematize, rectify, and complete the first glimpses of 
truth which the master had given. “He began to do 
and teach,” not in the sense that, after He had passed 
into the heavens, any new truth or force can for ever- 
more be imparted to humanity, in regard of the 
subjects which He taught and the energies which He 
brought. 

But whilst thus His work is complete, His earthly 
work is also initial And we must remember that 
whatever distinction my text may mean to draw 
between the work of Christ in the past and that in 
the present and the future, it does not mean to imply 
that when He ascended up on high, He had not 
completed the task for which He came, or that the 
world had to wait for anything more, either from Him 
or from others, to eke out the imperfections of His 
doctrine, or the insufficiencies of His acts. 

Let us ever remember that the initial work of 
Christ on earth is complete, in so far as the revelation 
of God to men is concerned. There will be no other. 
There is needed no other. Nothing more is possible 
than what He, by His words and by His life, by His 


CHRIST’S FINISHED AND UNFINISHED WORK. 13 


gentleness and His grace, by His patience and His 
passion, has unveiled to all men, of the heart and 
character of God. The revelation is complete, and 
He that professes to add anything to, or to substitute 
anything for, the finished teaching of Jesus Christ 
concerning God, and man’s relation to God, and man’s 
duty, destiny, and hopes, is a false teacher, and to 
follow him is fatal. All that ever come after Him 
and say, “Here is something that Christ has not told 
you,” are thieves and robbers, “and the sheep will not 
hear them.” 

Tn like manner that work of Christ, which in some 
sense is initial, is complete as Redemption. “This 
Man has offered up one sacrifice for sins for ever.” 
And nothing more can He do than He has done; and 
nothing more can any man or all men do than was 
accomplished on the Cross of Calvary. Asa revelation, 
as effecting a redemption, as lodging in the heart of 
humanity, and in the midst of the stream of human 
history, a purifying energy, sufficient to cleanse the 
whole black river, the past work which culminated 
on the Cross, and was sealed as adequate and accepted 
of God, in the Resurrection and Ascension, needs no 
supplement, and can have no continuation, world 
without end. And so, whatever may be the meaning 
of that singular phrase, “began to do and to teach,” 
it does not, in the smallest degree, conflict with the 
assurance that He hath ascended up on high, having 
obtained eternal redemption for us, and havin 
finished the work which the Father gave Him to do. 

Il.—But then, secondly, we have to notice what 
Christ continues to do and to teach after His ascen- 
sion, 


14 CHRIST'S FINISHED AND UNFINISHED WORK. 


I have already suggested that the phraseology of 
the first of my texts naturally leads to the conclusion 
that the theme of this book of the Acts is the con- 
tinuous work of the ascended Saviour; and that the 
language is not forced by being thus interpreted is 
very obvious to anyone who will glance even cursorily 
over the contents of the book itself. For there is 
nothing in it more obvious and remarkable than the 
way in which, at every turn in, the narrative, all is 
referred to Jesus Christ Himself. 

For instance, to cull one or two cases in order to 
bring the matter more plainly before you—When the 
Apostles determined to select another Apostle to fill 
Judas’ place, they asked Jesus Christ to show which 
“of these two Thou hast chosen.” When Peter is 
called upon to explain the tongues at Pentecost he 
says, “Jesus hath shed forth this which ye now see ~ 
and hear.” When the writer would tell the reason 
of the large first increase to the church, he says, 
“The Lord added to the church daily such as 
should be saved.” Peter and John go into the 
Temple to heal the lame man, and their words to him 
are, “Do not think that our power or holiness is any 
factor in your cure. The Name hath made this man 
whole.” It is the Lord that appears to Paul and to 
Ananias, the one on the road to Damascus and the 
other the city. It is the Lord to whom Peter refers 
Aineas when he says, “Jesus Christ maketh thee 
whole.” It was the Lord that “opened the heart 
of Lydia.” It was the Lord that appeared to Paul in 
Corinth, and said to him, “I have much people in 
this city”; and again, when in the prison at Jeru- 
salem, He assured the Apostle that he would be 


CHRIST'S FINISHED AND UNFINISHED WORK. 15 


carried to Rome. And so, at every turn in the 
narrative, we find that Christ is presented as influenc- 

ing men’s hearts, operating upon outward events, 
working miracles, confirming His word, leading His 
servants, and prescribing for them their paths, and 
all which they do is done by the hand of the Lord 
with them, confirming the word which they spoke. 
Jesus Christ is the Actor, and He only is the Actor, 
men are His implements and instruments. 

The same point of view is suggested by another of 
the characteristics of this book, which it shares in 
common with all Scripture narratives, and that is the 
stolid indifference with which it picks up and drops 
men, according to the degree in which, for the moment, 
they are the instruments of Christ’s power. Suppose 
a man had been writing Acts of the Apostles, do you 
think it would have been possible that of the greater 
number of them he should not say a word, that 
concerning those of whom he does speak he should 
deal with them as this book does—barely mentioning 
the martyrdom of James, one of the four chief apostles ; 
allowing Peter to slip out of the narrative after the 
great meeting of the church at Jerusalem; letting 
Philip disappear without a hint of what he did there- 
after ; lodging Paul in Rome and leaving him there, 
with no account of his subsequent work or martyrdom ? 
Such phenomena—and they might be largely multi- 
plied—are only explicable upon one hypothesis. As 
long as electricity streams on the carbon point it glows 
and is visible, but when the current is turned to 
another lamp we see no more of the bit of carbon. As 
long as God uses a man, the man is of interest to the 
writers of the Scripture, When God uses another one, 


16 CHRIST’S FINISHED AND UNFINISHED WORE. 


they drop the first, and have no more care about him 
because their theme is not men and their doings, but 
God’s doings through men. 

On us, and in us, and by us, and for us, if we are 
His servants, Jesus Christ is working all through the 
ages. He is the Lord of Providence, He is the King 
of history, in His hand is the book with the seven 
seals; He sends His Spirit, and where His Spirit is 
He is; and what His Spirit does He does. And thus 
He continues to teach and to work from His throne 
in the heavens. 

He continues to teach, not by the communication 
of new truth. That is done. The volume of reve- 
lation is complete. The last word of the Divine 
utterances hath been spoken, until that final word 
which shall end Time and crumble the earth. But 
the application of the completed Revelation, the un- 
folding of all that is wrapped in germ in it; the 
growing of the seed into a tree, the realization more 
completely by individuals and communities of the 
principles and truths which Jesus Christ has brought 
us by His life and His death—that is the work that 
is going on to-day, and that will go on till the end of 
the world. For the old Puritan belief is true, though 
the modern rationalistic mutilations of it are false, 
“God hath more light yet to break forth ”—and our 
modern men stop there. But what the sturdy old 
Puritan said was, “more light yet to break forth from 
His holy Word.” Jesus Christ teaches the ages— 
through the lessons of providence, and the communi- 
cation of His Spirit to His Church—to understand 
what He gave the world when He was here. 

In like manner He works. The foundation is laid 


OHRIST’S FINISHED AND UNFINISHED WORK. li 


the healing medicine is prepared, the cleansing 
element is cast into the mass of humanity; what 
remains is the application and appropriation, and in- 
- corporation in conduct, of the redeeming powers that 
Jesus Christ has brought. And that work is going 
on, and will go on, till the end. 

Now these truths of our Lord’s continuous activity 
in teaching and working from heaven may yield us 
some not unimportant lessons. What a depth and 
warmth and reality the thoughts give to the Chris- 
tian’s relation to Jesus Christ! We have to look back 
to that Cross as the foundation of all our hope. Yes! 
But we have to think, not only of a Christ who did 
something for us long ago in the past, and there an 
end, but of a Christ who to-day lives and reigns, to 
do and to teach according to our necessities. What 
sweetness and sacredness such thoughts impart to 
all external events, which we may regard as being the 
operation of His love, and moved by the hands that 
were nailed to the cross for us, and now hold the sceptre 
of the universe for the blessing of mankind! What a 
fountain of hope they open in estimating future 
probabilities of victory for truth and goodness! The 
forces of good and evil in the world seem very dispro- 
portionate, but we forget too often to take Christ into 
account. It is not we that have to fight against evil, 
we are but at the best the sword which Christ wields, 
and all the power is in the hand that wields it. 
Great men die, good men die: Jesus Christ is not 
dead. Paul was martyred. He lives; He is the 
anchor of our hope. We see miseries and mysteries 
enough, God knows. The prospects of all good causes 
seem often clouded and dark. The world has an 

2 


- 


18 CHRIST'S FINISHED AND UNFINISHED WORK. 


awful power of putting drags upon all chariots that 
bear blessings, and of turning to evil every good. 
You cannot diffuse education, but you diffuse the 
taste for rubbish, and something worse, in the shape 
of books. No good thing but has its shadow of evil 
attendant upon it. And if we had only to estimate 
by visible or human forces we might well sit down and 
wrap ourselves in the sackcloth of pessimism, “We 
see not yet all things put under Him”; but we see 
Jesus crowned with glory and honour, and the vision 
that cheered the first martyr—of Christ standing at 
the right hand of God—is the rebuke of every fear 
and every gloomy anticipation for ourselves or for the 
world. 

What lessons of lowliness and of diligence it gives 
us! The jangling people at Corinth fought about 
whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas were the man to 
lead the Church, and the experience has been repeated 
over and over again. “Whois Paul? Who is Apcllos, 
but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord - 
gave to every man. Be not puffed up one against 
another. Be not wise in your own conceits.” You 
are only a tool, only a pawn in the hand of the great 
player. If you have anything, it is because you get 
it from Him. See that you use it, and do not brag 
about it. Jesus Christ is the Worker, the only 
Worker; the Teacher, the only Teacher. All our 
wisdom is derived, all our light is enkindled. We are 
but the reeds through which His breath makes music. 
And shall the axe boast itself either against, or apart 
from, Him that heweth therewith ? 

IIL—Lastly, we note the incompleteness of each 
man’s share in the great work. 


CHRIST'S FINISHED AND UNFINISHED WORE. 19 


As I said, the book which is to tell the story of 
Christ’s continuous work from Heaven must stop 
abruptly. There is no help for it. If it werea history 
of Paul it would need to be wound up to an end 
and a selvage put to it, but as it is the history of 
Christ’s working, the web is not half finished, and 
the shuttle stops in the middle of a cast. The book 
must be incomplete, because the work of which it is 
the record does not end, until He shall have deli- 
vered up the Kingdom to the Father, and God shall 
be all in all. 

So the work of each one is but a fragment of that 
great work. Every man inherits unfinished tasks 
from his predecessors, and leaves unfinished tasks to 
his successors. It is, as it used to be in the middle 
ages, when the men that dug the foundations, or laid 
the first courses of some great cathedral, were dead, 
long generations before the gilded eross was set on 
the apex of the needle-spire, and the glowing glass 
filled in to the painted windows. Enough for us, if 
we are represented, though by but one stone in one of 
the courses of the great building. 

_ Luke has left plenty of blank paper at the end of 
his second treatise, on which he meant that succeed- 
ing generations should write their partial contributions 
to the completed work. Dear friends, let us see that 
we write our little line, as monks in their monasteries 
used to keep the chronicle of the house, on which 
scribe after scribe toiled at his illuminated letters with 
loving patience for a little while, and then handed 
the pen from dying hands to another. What does it 
matter though we drop, having done but a fragment ? 
Christ gathers up the fragments into His completed 
2* 


. 


20° CHRIST'S FINISHED AND UNFINISHED WORK. 


work, and the imperfect services which He enabled 
any of us to do will all be represented in the per- 
fect circle of His finished work. The Lord help 
us to be faithful to the power that works in us 
‘and to leave Him to incorporate our fragments in 
His mighty whole | 


TI. 


The Resurrection asa Foundation Fact 
of the Gospel.* 


I DELIVERED unto you first of all that which I also received, 
how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures ; 
and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day 
according to the Scriptures,”—1 Cor. xv, 3, 4. 


HRISTMAS DAY is probably not the 
true anniversary of the Nativity; but 
Easter is certainly that of the Resur- 
rection. The season is appropriate. 
In the climate of Palestine the first 

fruits of the harvest were ready at the Passover for 

presentation in the Temple. It was an agricultural 
as well as a historical festival; and the connection 
between that aspect of the feast and the Resurrection 
of our Lord is in the Apostle’s mind when he says, 
in a subsequent part of this chapter, that Christ is 

“risen from the dead and become the first fruits of 

them that slept.” 

In our colder climate the season is no less appro- 
priate. The “life re-orient out of dust,’ which shows 
itself to-day in every bursting leaf-bud and springing 
flower, is Nature’s parable of the spring that awaits 
man after the winter of death. No doubt, apart from 


* Preached on Easter Sunday. 


22 THE RESURRECTION AS A FOUNDATION 


the resurrection of Jesus, the yearly miracle kindles 
sad thoughts in mourning hearts, and suggests bitter 
contrasts to those who sorrow, having no hope. But 
‘the grave in the garden has turned every blossom into 
(a smiling prophet of the Resurrection. 

And so the season, illuminated by the event, teaches 
us lessons of hope that “we shall not all die.” Let us 
turn, then, this morning, to the thoughts naturally 
suggested by the day, and the great fact which it 
brings to each mind, and confirmed thereafter by the 
miracle that is being wrought round about us. 

I—First, then, in my text, I would have you note 
the facts of Paul’s gospel. 

“First of all . . . I delivered” these things. 
And the “first” not only points to the order of time 
in the proclamation, but to the order of importance as 
well. For these initial facts are the fundamental 
facts, on which all that may follow thereafter is cer- 
tainly built. Now the first thing that strikes me here 
is that, whatever else the system unfolded in the New 
Testament is, to begin with, it is a simple record of 
historical fact. It becomes a philosophy, it becomes a 
religious system; it is a revelation of God; it is an 
unveiling of man; it is a body of ethical precepts. 
It is morals and philosophy and religion all in one; 
but it is, first of all, a 7 of something that took 
place in the world. 

If that be so, there is a lesson for men whose work 
it is to preach it. Let them never forget that their 
business is to insist upon the truth of these great, 
supernatural, all-important, and fundamental facts, 
the death and the Resurrection of Jesus Christ 
They must evolve all the deep meanings that lie in 


FACT OF THE GOSPEL. 23 


them ; and the deeper they dig for their meanings the 
fees. Thay siast open out the andlew Leases of 
consolation and enforce the omnipotent motives of 
action which are wrapped up in the facts; but howso- 
ever far they may carry their evolving and their 
application of them, they will neither be faithful to 
their Lord nor true stewards of their message unless, 
clear above all other aspects of their work, and under- 
lying all other forms of their ministry, there be the 
unfaltering proclamation—“ first of all,” midst of all, 

last of all—“how that Christ died for our sins 
according to the Scriptures,” and “that He was raised 
again according to the Scriptures.” 

Note, too, how this fundamental and original 
character of the gospel which Paul preached, as a 
record of facts, makes short work of a great deal that 
calls itself “liberal Christianity” in these days. We 
are told that it is quite possible to be a very good 
Christian man, and reject the supernatural, and turn 
away with incredulity from the story of the resurrec- 
tion. It may be so, but I confess that it puzzles me 
to understand how, if the fundamental character of 
Christian teaching be the proclamation of certain 
facts, a man who does not believe those facts has the 
right to call himself a Christian. 

Note, further, how there is an element of explana- 
tion involved in the proclamation of the facts, which 
turns them intoa gospel. Mark how “that Christ 
died,” not Jesus. It isa great truth, that the man, 
our Brother, Jesus, passed through the common lot, 
but that is not what Paul says here, though he often 
says it. What he says is that “ Christ died.” Christ 
is the name of an office, into which is condensed a 


24 THE RESURRECTION AS A FOUNDATION. 


whole system of truth, declaring that it is He who is 
the Apex, the Seal, and ultimate Word of all Divine 
revelation. It was the Christ that died; unless it 
was, the death of Jesus is no gospel. 

“He died for our sins.” Now, if the Apostle had 
only said “He died for us,” that might conceivably 
have meant that in a multitude of different ways, by 
example, appeal to our pity and compassion and the 
like, His death was of use to mankind. But when he 
says “He died for our sins,’ I take leave to think 
that that expression has no meaning, unless it means 
that He died as the expiation and sacrifice for men’s 
sins. I ask you, in what intelligible sense could 
Christ “die for our sins” unless He died as bearing 
their punishment and as bearing it forus? And then, 
finally, “He died and rose . . . according to the 
Scriptures,” fulfilling the Divine purposes revealed 
from of old. 

To the fact that a man was crucified outside the 
gates of Jerusalem, “and rose again the third day,” 
which is the narrative, there are added these three 
things—the dignity of the Person, the purpose of His 
death, the fulfilment of the Divine intention mani- 
fested from of old. And these three things, as I said, 
turn the narrative into a gospel. 

So, brethren, let us remember that, without all 
three of them, the death of Jesus Christ is nothing to 
us, any more than the death of thousands of sweet 
and saintly men in the past has been, who may have 
seen a little more of the supreme goodness and great- 
ness than their fellows, and tried in vain to make 
purblind eyes participate in their vision. Do you 
think that these twelve fishermen would ever have 


os) hhA be Lyk bn He f niece as 
U/ of Wf i 
yo Sut Qt Us CHA fn) phy 


FACT OF THE GOSPEL. 25 


shaken the world if they had gone out with the story 
of the Oross, unless they had carried along with it the 
commentary which is included in the words which I 


have emphasized? And do you Sere that the type 
of Christianity which slurs over the explanation, and 
so does not know what to do with the facts, will ever 
do much in the world, or will ever touch men? Let 


is Tiboralie oue Chrstinnity by all moans but donot 
et us evaporate it; and evaporate it we surely shall, 
if we falter in saying with Paul, “I declare, first of all, 
that which I received,” namely, the death and resur- 
rection of the Christ “for our sins, according to the 
Scriptures.” These are the facts which make Paul’s 
gospel. 

If.—Now I ask you to look, in the second place, at 
what establishes the facts. 

We lave here, in this chapter, a statement very 
much older than our existing written gospels. This 
epistle is one of the four letters of Paul which nobody 
that I know of—with quite insignificant exceptions 
in modern times—has ever ventured to dispute. 
It is admittedly the writing of the Apostle, written 
before the Gospels, and in all probability within five- 
and-twenty years of the date of the Crucifixion. And 
what do we find alleged by it as the state of things at 
its date? That the belief in the Resurrection of 
Jesus Christ was the subject of universal Christian 
teaching, and was accepted by all the Christian com- 
munities. Its evidence to that fact is undeniable; 
because there was in the early Christian Church a 
very formidable and large body of bitter antagonists _ 
of Paul’s, who would have been only too glad to have 
convicted him, if they could, of any misrepresentation 


ry 


_— 


yf) 

: 

“Ft , i> 
5 .3 ~ 


r 
: 


dL bhaek Unt Tad Rae 


Yew en Church 


26 ' THE\ RESURRECTION As A FOUNDATION 
y= : 


a 


of usual notion, or divergence from the usual type of 
teaching. So we may take it as undoniable that the 
representation of this chapter is historically true; and 
that, within five-and-twenty years of the death of 
Jesus Christ, every Christian community and every 
Christian teacher believed in and proclaimed the fact 
of the Resurrection. 

But if that be so, we necessarily are carried a great 
deal nearer the Cross than five-and-twenty years; and, 
in fact, there is not, between the mcment when Paul 
penned these words and the day of Pentecost, a single 
chink in the history where you can insert such a 
tremendous innovation as the full-fledged belief in a 
resurrection, coming in as something new. 

I do not need to dwell at all upon this other 
thought, that, unless the belief that Jesus Christ had 
risen from the dead originated at the time of His 
death, there would never have been a Church at all. 
Why was it that they did not tumble to pieces? 
Take the nave out of the wheel and what becomes of 


the spokes? A dead Christ could neyer haye been 
the basis of a living Church, If He had not risen from 
the dead, the story of His disciples would have been 
the same as that which Gamaliel told the Sanhedrim 
was the story of all former pseudo-Messiahs, such as 
that man Theudas. “He was slain and as many as 
followed him were dispersed and came to naught.” 
Of course! The existence of the Church demands, 
as a pre-requisite, the initial belief in the Resur- 
rection. I think, then, that the contemporaneousness 
of the evidence is sufficiently established. 

What about its good faith? I suppose that 
nobody, now-a-days, doubts the veracity of these 


FACT OF THE GOSPEL. 97 


witnesses. Anybody that knows an honest man when 
he sees him, anybody that has the least ear for the 
tone of sincerity and the accent of conviction, must 
say they may have been fanatics, they may have been 
mistaken, but one thing is clear as sunlight, they were 
not false witnesses for God. 

What, then, about their competency? Their 
simplicity ; their ignorance; their slowness to believe ; 
their stupor of surprise when the fact first dawned 
upon them—which things they tell not with any idea 
of manufacturing evidence in their own favour, but 
simply as a piece of history—all tend to make us 
certain that there was no play of morbid imagina- 
tion, no hysterical turning of a wish into a fact, on 
the part of these men. The sort of things that they 
say they saw and experienced are such as to make 
any such supposition altogether absurd. Long 
conversations, appearances appealing to more than 
one sense, appearances followed by withdrawals; 
sometimes in the morning ; sometimes in the evening ; 
sometimes at a distance, as on the mountain; some- 
times close by, as in the chamber; to single souls and 
to multitudes. Fancy five hundred people all at once 
smitten with the same mistake, imagining that they | 
saw what they did not see! Miracles may be difficult 
to believe; they are not half so difficult to believe as 
absurdities. And this modern explanation of the 
faith in the Resurrection ] venture respectfully to 
designate as absurd, 

But there is one other point to which I would like 
to turn for a moment; and that is that little clause 
in my text that “He was buried.” Why does Paul 
introduce that amongst his facts? Possibly in order 


28 THE RESURRECTION AS A FOUNDATION 


to affirm the reality of Christ’s death; but I think for 
another reason. If it be true that Jesus Christ was 
laid in that sepulchre, a stone’s-throw outside the 
city gate, do you not see what a difficulty that fact 
puts in the way of disbelief or denial of His Resur- 
rection? Since the grave—and it was not a grave, 
remember, like ours, but a cave, with a stone at the 
door of it, that anybody could roll away for entrance— 
since the grave was there, why, in the name of common 
sense, did not the rulers put an end to the pestilent 
rey by saying, “Let us go and see if the body 3 is 
in it” 

aa deniers of the Resurrection may fairly be 
asked to front this thought—if Jesus Christ’s body 
was in the sepulchre, how was it possible for belief in 
the Resurrection to have been originated or main- 
tained? If His body was not in the grave, what had 
become of it? If His friends stole it away, then they 
were deceivers of the worst type in preaching a resur- 
rection; and we have already seen that that hypothesis 


) is ridiculous. If His enemies took it away, for which 


they had no motive, why did they not produce it, and 
say, “There is an answer to your nonsense! There is 
the dead man! Letus hear no more of this absurdity 
of His having risen from the dead ” ? 

“Hedied . . . according to the Scriptures, and 
He was buried.” And the angels’ word carries the 
only explanation of the fact which it proclaims, “He 
is not here—He is risen.” 

I take leave to say that the Resurrection of Jesus 
Christ is established by evidence which nobody would 
ever have thought of doubting, unless for the theory 


that miracles were impossible. The reason for dis- 


FACT OF THE GOSPEL, 29 


belief is not the deficiency of the evidence, but the _ 
bias of the judge. 
111.—And now I have no time to do more than 


touch the last thought. I have tried to show what 
establishes the facts. Let me remind you, in a sen- 
tence or two, what the facts establish. 

I by no means desire to suspend the whole of the 
evidence for Christianity on the testimony of the eye- 
witnesses to the Resurrection. There are a great many 
other ways of establishing the truth of the Gospel 
besides that, upon which I do not need to dwell 
now. But, taking this one specific ground which 
my text suggests, what do the facts thus established 
prove ? 

Well, the first point to which I would refer, and on 
which I should like to enlarge, if I had time, is the 
bearing of Christ’s resurrection on the acceptance of 
the miraculous. We hear a great deal about the im- 
possibility of miracle and the like. It upsets the 
certainty and fixedness of the order of things, and so 
forth and so forth. Jesus Christ has risen from the 
dead; and that opens a door wide enough to admit 

Il the rest of the Gospel miracles. It is of no use 
paring down the supernatural in Christianity in order 
to meet the prejudices of a quasi-scientific scepticism, 
unless you are prepared to go the whole length, and 
give up the Resurrection. There is the turning point. 
The question is, Do you believe that Jesus Christ rose 
from the dead ; or do you not? If your objections to 
the supernatural are valid, then Christ is not risen 
from the dead ; and you must face the consequences 
of that. If He is risen from the dead, then you must 
cease all your talk about the impossibility of miracle, 


80 THE RESURRECTION AS 4 FOUNDATION 


and be willing to accept a supernatural revelation as 
God’s way of making Himself known to man. 

But, further, let me remind you of the bearing of 
the Resurrection upon Christ's work and claims. If 
He be lying in some forgotten grave, and if all that 
fair thought of His having burst the bands of death is 
a blunder, then there was nothing in His death that 
had the least bearing upon men’s sin, and it is no 
more to me than the deaths of thousands in the past. 
But if He be risen from the dead, then the Resur- 
rection casts back a light upon the Cross, and we 
understand that His death is the life of the world, 
and that “by His stripes we are healed.” 

But, further, remember what He said about Himself 
when He was in the world—how He claimed to be 
the Son of God; how He demanded absolute obedi- 
ence, implicit trust, supreme love; how He identified 
faith in Himself with faith in God—and consider the 
Resurrecticn as bearing on the reception or rejection 
of these tremendous claims, It seems to me that we 
are brought sharp up to this alternative—Jesus 
Christ rose from the dead, and was declared by the 
Resurrection to be the Son of God with power; or 
Jesus Christ has not risen from the dead—and what 
then? Then He was either deceiver or deceived, and 
in either case has no right to my reverence and my 
love. We may be thankful that men are illogical, and 

that many who reject the Resurrection retain rever- 
‘ence, genuine and deep, for Jesus Christ. But 
| whether they have any right to do so is another 
\matter. I confess for myself that, if I did not believe 
‘that Jesus Christ had risen from the dead, I should 
find it very hard to accept, as an example of conduct, 


FACT OF THE GOSPEL, 31 


A 


or as religious teacher, a man who had made such 

reat claims as He did, and had asked from me what 
He asked. It seems to me that He is either a great 
deal more, or a great deal Jess, than a beautiful saintly 
soul. If He rose from the dead He is much more; 
if He did not, I am afraid to say how much less He is. 

And, finally, the bearing of the Resurrection of 
Jesus Christ upon our own hopes of the future may 
be suggested. It teaches us that life has nothing to 
do with organization, but persists apart from the body. 
It teaches us that a man may pass from death and be 
unaltered in the substance of his being; and it teaches 
us that the earthly house of our tabernacle may be 
fashioned like unto the glorious house in which He 
dwells now at the right hand of God. There is no 
other absolute proof of immortality but the Resurrec- 
tion of Jesus Christ. 

If we accept with all our hearts and minds Paul’s 
Gospel in its fundamental facts, we need not fear to 
die, because He has died, and dying has been the 
death of death. We need not doubt that we shall live 
again, kecause He was dead and is alive for evermore, 

his Samscn has carried away the gates on His strong 


shoulders, and death is no more a dungeon, but «a pas-. 


sage, If we rest ourselves upon Him, then we can 
take up, for ourselves ard for all that are dear to us 
and have gone before us, the triumphant song, “Oh! 
Death, where is thy sting?” “Thanks be to God, 
which giveth us the victcry through our Lord Jesus 
Christ.” 


| 


IV. 


The Devout theart Defying Death.* 


‘THEREFORE my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth: my flesh 
also shall rest in hope. For Thou wilt not leave my soul in 
hell; neither wilt Thou suffer Thine Holy One to see ccorrup- 
tion. Thou wilt show me the path of life ; in Thy presence is 


fulness of joy; at Thy right hand there are pleasures for 
evermore.”—Ps. xvi. 9—11. 


HE piteous tragedy of this last week is 
| no doubt in all our thoughts this 
morning. Words are poor in the 
presence of such an instance of the 

-<I ruthlessness of impartial Death. He 
aimed high and he struck surely. First fell that 
great ecclesiastic whose remarkable career and person- 
ality gave him such prominence and influence, and 
then one young head, over which gleamed a crown 
that was never to be worn, is laid low; and another, 
above which hung a bridal wreath that was never to 
rest upon her locks, is bowed in a sorrow which 
touches a nation’s heart. But the more irresistible 
and awful is the power of that enemy who beats in 
with equal foot the door of the palace and of the 
cottage, the more needful is it for us to bethink our- 
selves how paltry a thing death is after all, and to 
learn its weakness and its “limitations, 


* Preached after the deaths of Cardinal Manning and the Duke 
of Clarence. 


THE DEVOUT HEART DEFYING DEATH. 83 


So I turn now to the words of this ancient singer 
whom we hear in my text in the very act of 
grasping, through his present religious experience, 
the great thought that his communion with God 
must be unbroken by anything that can befall him 
Let us listen to him, and see if we can catch some- 
thing of his confident assurance. 

I—I would point out, first, the ground of this 
triumphant confidence. 

My text begins with a “therefore,” and that sends 
‘us back to what has preceded, What has gone 
before? The realization by faith, of the presence of 
God, and of the calm blessedness and stability of 
continual communion with Him. The Psalmist says: 
“ Because I have set the Lord always before me, and 
feel that, He being with me, I cannot be moved, 
therefore I am sure that nothing can ever break this 
communion of mine with Him,” or, to put the same 
thing into other words, the religious experiences of 
the devout life are of such a nature as to bring with 
them the calm, sweet assurance of their own immor- 
tality. Let us remember that these ancient saints 
had no such light as we have, streaming from the 
open grave of a Brother who Himself has died and 
lives in glory. But though they were thrown back 
upon their own present experience of religion to be a 
lamp for the darkness of the future, in a manner in 
which we are not, it still remains true that for us the 
evidence of the religious life to its own eternity is 
valid and powerful. 

The capacity for communion with God surely bears 
witness that the man who has it is not born for death; 
and the exercise of that capacity is surely not the 


34 THE DEVOUT HEART DEFYING DEATH. 


least of the demonstrations of life persisting through 
and perfected by death. If, indeed, it was a mere 
piece of theological dogma that there was a life 
beyond the grave, then it would need to be com- 
mended by something other than the witness of our 
own devoutest and selectest moments. But if we 
are to translate a mere inoperative belief of the 
understanding into a living conviction that shall stay 
and solace the heart, there is no surer way of doing 
it than by passing here into the blessedness of com- 
munion with God Himself. 

So, dear‘friends, though we have the objective proof 
of a future life, in the Resurrection and Ascension 
of Jesus Christ, and though that historical fact is 
the illuminating fact which brings life and im- 
mortality to light, there is needed for the conversion 
of intellectual belief into living confidence the witness 
of our own personal enjoyment of God and His sweet- 
ness, here and now, which will bring to us, as nothing 
else will, the calm assurance wherein our hearts may 
be glad, our spirits may rejoice, and our very flesh 
may rest safely. If you would be sure of a blessed 
future, make sure of a God-filled present. If we feel 
that He is “the strength of our hearts” here, we shall 
be sure that “He is our portion for ever.” To him 
who can say “To me to live is Christ,” it is impossible 
not to say, “ And to die is gain.” 

The experiences of the devout life of earth are the 
witnesses, not to be silenced or gainsaid, of the per- 
petuity and the perfection of communion with God in 
Heaven. 

II—And s0, secondly, note the contents of the 
Psalmist’s triumphant confidence, 


THE DEVOUT HEART DEFYING DEATH. 85 


We have seen why he hoped ; now let us look for a 
moment to that for which he hoped. I must ask you 
to allow me a word or two of explanation. “Thou 
wilt not leave my soulin hell, neither wilt Thou suffer 
Thine Holy One ‘to see corruption,” gives us the 
negative side of the blessedness of which he was sure. 
“ Thou wilt show me the path of life; in Thy presence 
is fulness of joy; at Thy right hand there are 
pleasures for evermore,” gives its positive side. 

Now as to that negative, I must just point out that 
in the original there is nothing about “leaving in.” 
The language is “leave to,” and that conveys an 
altogether different idea. It does not express the 
notion of a permission to descend for a time into 
Sheol, then to be recalled thence, but it expresses the 
idea of not being delivered at all to the power of that 
dark world. 

Of course the expression here, “ hell,” is not to be 
taken in the limited sense which that terrible word has 
gradually gathered round itself as of a place of torment, 
but is the simple Hebrew representation of the dwell- 
ing-place of the dead as a great region, dim, shadowy ; 
in which there was lived a feeble life that was scarcely 
worth calling life; where there was no praise of God, 
nor activity for Him, nor remembrance of His name ; 
but pale shadows moved in a pale world. 

And the latter clause of this verse does not, in the 
original, speak about “seeing corruption,” but about 
“seeing the pit,” as the margin of the Revised Version 
shows. Now “the pit” may either be a synonym for 
the under-world, which is spoken of in the previous 
clause, or it may mean “the grave.” In either case 
to “see the pit” is the equivalent to the other expres- 

| oH 


36 THE DEVOUT HEART DEFYING DEATH. 


sion, to “see death,” which, again, is the equivalent to 
experiencing death, or to dying. 

So, then, the Psalmist is not thinking about any 
resurrection of the body, as is often understood to be 
his meaning in these words; but is thinking, rather, 
that for him, by reason of his communion with God, 
death has really been abolished and become non- 
existent. The threatening shadow is swept clean out 
of his path. 

But now, could any man, knowing the facts of 
human life, ever cherish such an expectation as that ? 
Well, the answer, I think, is to be found in distin- 
guishing between essence and form. The essence of 
the Psalmist’s conviction and confidence was that his 
communion with God was unbroken and unbreakable, 
and, in the light of that great hope, the grim figure 
that stood before him thinned itself away to a film, 
through which the hope shone like a star through a 
cloud. How it was to be brought about he did not 
know; but this he did know, that he certainly was 
not going to die in such a fashion as to break his 
communion with God. There was trembling upon 
his lips the great word, “ He that believeth shall never 
die.” A new hope was swimming into his sky, a hope 
of unbroken life. And although its great round had 
not lifted itself clear above the horizon, the streaks of 
amber light still shot to the zenith, and prophesied the 
rising of a yet unrisen sun. Whatsoever may have 
been the obscurity that lay over his conceptions of 
his own future, this was clear to him—and this was the 
all-essential thing—that the contentment, the depen- 
dence, the stability, and immobility which he enjoyed 
in his communion with God had nothing in them 


THE DEVOUT HEART DEFYING DEATH. 87 


that Death could touch, and would run on unbroken 
for evermore. 

You and I know how that is brought about, as he 
did not. But we may take the lesson, “Love is all, 
Death is nought, said he”; and may understand him 
better than he understood himself when he looked 
forward, and in the teeth of all experience declared 
his confidence that God would not abandon His 
Beloved to the darkness of the grave, nor that any- 
thing would ever break the bond that knit the 
Psalmist to His heart. 

But though my text does not contemplate a 
Resurrection as a definite article of belief, resurrection 
is the logical result of the Psalmist’s way of thinking. 
For, says he, “my flesh also shall rest secure.” He 
believed, as the Bible teaches us throughout, that the 
perfection and completeness of humanity is body, 
soul, and spirit; or, as my text has it, in an analogous 
division, “heart, soul, and flesh.” The overstrained 
spiritualism which pays no attention to the body, 
except as the clog and prison-house of the soul, has 
no footing in Scriptural representations, which rather 
declare that redemption is not complete until some- 
how the body shares in the “liberty of the glory of 
the sons of God.” Therefore the perfection of 
humanity is to be found, not in any winding up of 
the spirit into lofty heights where the old humble 
companion and organ can never accompany it, but in 
the rising up of a perfected spirit and the investing of 
it with a body of glory—its fitting instrument, its 
joyous friend. “Corporeity is the end of God’s ways 
with man.” And if there be an unbroken life of 
communion for the devout soul, that draws after it 


ee 


38 THE DEVOUT HEART DEFYING DEATH. 


the certainty that there shall be a future life of glory 
for a body that wraps the spirit. 

But turn now to the positive side of this triumphant 
confidence. “Thou wilt show me the path of life.” 
That does not only mean a road which has life at the 
far end of it, but a road which is life all the way 
along, and leads to a more perfect and ultimate form 
thereof. The Psalmist is sure that, when the path 
dips down into any valley of the shadow of death, it 
is still a path of life. The great t thgue et that_the 


. way to real life is through apparent eath is “all but 
ready for uttérance, but it is not uttered. It waits 


for the time when, in the light of the open grave and 
the filled throne, it can be fully declared. 

Then, mark the other portions of this triumphant, 
positive confidence, and their very remarkable and 
beautiful connection with what the Psalmist has been 
describing in the previous verses as his present 
experience. That connection is partially masked in 
our version; but I think only needs to be pointed 
out in order to be convincing. ‘“ Thou wilt show me 
the path of life,” says he. And he had just said, at 
will bless the Lord who hath given me counsel.” If 
we let Him counsel us here, He will lead us along the 
heavenly road of life hereafter. “In Thy presence,” 

r “before Thee, is fulness of joy.” And he had 
just said, “I have set the Lord always before me.” If, 
amidst the distractions and temptations and obtru- 
sive nothings of this life we steadfastly, by the effort 
of faith, set Jehovah before us, then, in His own 
time, reaching down His hand, He will lift us and set 
us before Him in the light of His face, and amidst 
the calm eternities of blessedness that fill the 


THE DEVOUT HEART DEFYING DEATH. 39 


heavens. “At Thy right hand there are pleasures 
for evermore.” And he had just said, “ He is at my 
right hand.” If we bring Him, as we can if we will, 
-to stand by our right hands as our Champion, our 
Guide, and the Breather of strength into our weak- 
ness, then at His own time He will bring us and set 
us at His right hand, where the Lord and Forerunner 
of our spirits is; and where, therefore, we, too, shall 
be. He is at our right hand whilst we fight; we 
are at His when we are crowned as victors. He is 
at our right hand whilst we tarry here below; we are 
at His when we dwell beside Him, gazing upon His 
face, the children of His right hand, the chosen of 
His love. 

And so, dear brethren, the communion of earth, 
imperfect as it is, yields analogies, by the heightening 
and purifying of which we may construct for our- 
selves, some dim indeed, but reliable, visions of the 
blessedness of heaven. And they who here on earth 
know what it is to be in touch with God, to draw 
instruction and guidance from Him, and to realize the 
light of His face as pouring upon them even through 
the clouds and the mist, need but to enlarge their 
experiences, and to strip them of all their imperfec- 
tions, in order to have a not altogether unworthy 
image of what makes heaven. 

Especially the enlargement and perfecting of this 
earthly experience is to be looked for, says my text, in 
two directions. “The fulness of joy” is “in Thy 
presence.” Limited joys are all that we have here. 
Not only all earthly joy is less than the capacity 
of our nature, but even the joys of the closest 
communion with God leave something to be desired, 


40 THE DEVOUT HEART DEFYING DEATH. 


and something possible to be imagined. We can 
always conceive a little more that might be. The 
vessel is never filled here. We drink, and they may 
be deep draughts, but still they are only, as it were, 
of brooks by the way. Yonder we shall be close by 
the fountain-head, and shall slake an immortal thirst, 
which shall never know the possibility of greater 
enjoyment at the moment, though each moment's 
full enjoyment will make a fuller possible in the 
moment thereafter. The incompleteness of earth 
shall be changed for the fulness of the heavens. 

And, again, “at Thy right hand there are pleasures 
for evermore.” The word is the same as has been 
already used in the psalm, with a slight variation 
only of form. “The lines are fallen unto me in 
pleasant places,” and hereafter there are “pleasant- 
nesses” that are eternal. The contrast, of course, is 
with the fleetingnesses of earthly joys. Yonder they 
are “for evermore,” either in the sense that these 
delights do not cloy or cease to charm, nor do they 

_ perish, but rather increase with the using, or, as seems 
to be more properly the sense, that from Him there 
flow, in unbroken and eternal succession, grace for 
grace, gift for gift, one wave of felicity following the 
other like the sunlit ripples that press to the shore, and 
stretch away into the horizon, in one continual net- 
work of light that knows no end. So the communion 
of earth is heightened, expanded, made full, and 
made perpetual, 

III.—I need only remind you, in a word, last of all, 
of the fulfilment of this triumphant confidence. 

The Psalmist died, True, the essence of his hopes 
was fulfilled. True,.too, the form of them was not 


THE DEVOUT HEART DEFYING DEATH. 41 


He did “see the pit,” because he did not “set the 
Lord always before him.” His communion was in- 
complete, his immunity was therefore partial. The 
words, then, point to an ideal which the Psalmist 
strained after, and did not realize. They are pro- 
phetic, inasmuch as all the imperfections of ancient 
prophets, kings, and singers point onward to Him in 
whom they are fulfilled. And Jesus Christ, God’s 
loved One, saw not the pit, though He passed into 
the grave, because in Him, and in Him alone, was 
realized in its completeness that life of communion 
which delivers from death. 

But He having died and having risen, His death 
and His resurrection have completed that thinning 
away of the ghastly form of Death which is begun in 
the confidence of my psalm ; and it is now true, literally 
true, that He has abolished death. For though there 
still remains the physical fact, all that makes it 
“death” is gone for him who trusts in Jesus Christ. 

We then, with more triumphant confidence still 
than the Psalmist, may laugh in the face of the 
spectre, and bid defiance to his blunted darts. 
“Abraham is dead, and the prophets are dead; and 
Thou sayest, If a man keep My saying he shall never 
see death. Whom makest Thou Thyself?” And the 
answer comes: “I am the Resurrection and the Life; 
he that believeth on Me, though he die, yet shall he 
live ; and whosoever liveth and believeth on Me shall 
never die. Believest thou this?” May we respond, 
“Yea, Lord! I believe that Thou art the Christ, the 
Son of God !” 


Vv. 
Philip the Lvangelist. 


“Bot Philip was found at Azctus: and passing through he 
preached in all the cities, till he came to Czsarea.”— 
Acts viii. 40. 


<7)|HE little that is known about Philip, 

| the deacon and evangelist, may very 
soon be told. His name suggests, 
though by no means conclusively, 
that he was probably one of the 
so-called Hellenists, or foreign-born and Greek- 
speaking Jews. This is made the more probable 
because he was one of the seven selected by the 
Church, and after selection appointed by the apostles, 
to dispense relief to the poor. The purpose of the 
appointment being to conciliate the grumblers in the 
Hellenist section of the Church, the persons chosen 
would probably belong.to it. He left Jerusalem 
during the persecution “that arose after the death of 
Stephen.” As we know, he was the first preacher of 
the Gospel in Samaria; he was next the instrument 
honoured to carry the Word to the first heathen 
ever gathered into the Church; and then, after a 
journey along the sea-coast to Czsarea, the then seat 
of government, he remained in that place in obscure 


PHILIP THE EVANGELIST. 48 


toil for twenty years, dropped out of the story, and 
we hear no more about him but for one glimpse of 
his home in Czsarea. 

That is all that is told of him. And I think 
that, if we note the contrast of the office to which 
men called him, and the work to which God set Him; 
and the other still more striking contrast between 
the brilliancy of the beginning of his course, and the 
obscurity of his long years of work, we may get some 
lessons worth the learning. I take, then, not only 
the words which I read for my text, but the whole of 
the incidents connected with this man as our starting- 
point now. And I draw from them two or three 
very well-worn, but none the less needful, pieces of 
instruction. P 

I.—First, then, we may gather a thought as to 
Christ’s sovereignty in choosing His instruments. 

Did you ever notice that events exactly contra- 
dicted the notion of the Church, and of the apostles, 
in the selection of Philip and his six brethren? _ The 
apostles said, “It is not reason that we should leave 
the Word of God and serve tables, Pick out seven 
relieving-officers ; men who shall do the secular work 
of the Church, and look after the poor; and we will 
give ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the 
Word.” So said man. And what did facts say? 
That out of these twelve, who were to give them- 
selves to prayer and the ministry of the Word, we 
never hear that by far the larger proportion of them 
were honoured to do anything worth mentioning for 
the spread of the Gospel. Their function was to be 
“witnesses”; and that was all. But, on the other 
hand, of the men that were supposed to be fitted for 


44 PHILIP THE EVANGELIST. 


secular work, two at all events had more to do in the 
expansion of the Church, and in the development of 
the universal aspects of Christ’s Gospel, than the 
whole of the original group of apostles. So Christ 
picks His instruments, The apostles may say, “These 
shall do so-and-so; and we will do so-and-so.” Christ 
says, “Stephen shall proclaim a wider gospel than 
the other twelve at first had caught sight of, and 
Philip shall be the first that shall go beyond the 
charmed circle of Judaism, and preach the Gospel.” 

It is always so. The Thuringian miner's son shall 
shake the Roman Church to its foundations; the 
Bedfordshire tinker shall write “ Pilgrim’s Progress” ; 
the Northamptonshire cobbler shall be the first man 
to lay foreign missions upon the conscience of the 
modern Church. Christ chooses His instruments 
where He will; and it is not the apostles’ business, 
nor the business of an ecclesiastic of any sort, to settle 
his own work or anybody else’s. The Commander-in- ~ 
Chief keeps the choosing of the men for special service 
in His own hand. The Apostolic College said, “ Let 
them look after the poor and leave us to look after 
the ministry of the Word.” Christ says, “‘Go and join 
thyself to that chariot,’ and speak there the speech 
that I shall bid thee. 

Brethren, do you listen for that voice calling you to 
your tasks, and never mind what men may be saying. 
Wait till He bids, and you will hear Him speaking to 
you, if you will keep yourselves quiet. Wait till He 
bids you, and then be sure that you do His bidding. 
Christ chooses His instruments, and chooses them 
often in strange places. 

I1,—The next lesson that I would take from this 


PHILIP THE EVANGELIST. 45 


story is the spontaneous speech of a believing 
heart. 

There came a persecution that scattered the Church. 
Men tried to fling down the lamp; and all that they 
did was to spill the oil, and it ran flaming wherever 
it went. For the scattered brethren, without any 
apostle with them, with- no instruction given to them 
to do so, wherever they went carried their 
faith with them, and, as a matter of course, 
wherever they went they spoke their faith. And so 
we read that, not by appointment, nor of set purpose, 
nor in consequence of any ecclesiastical or official 
sanction, nor in consequence of any supernatural and 
distinct commandment from heaven, but just because 
it was the natural thing to do, and they could not help 
it, they went everywhere, these scattered men of 
Cyprus and Cyrene, preaching the Word. 

And when this Philip, whom the officials had rele- 
gated to the secular work of distributing charity, 
found himself in Samaria, he did the like. The 
Samaritans were outcasts, and Peter and John had 
wanted to bring down fire from heaven to consume. 
them. But Philip could not help speaking out the 
truth that was in his heart. 

So it always will be; we can all talk about what we 
are interested in. The full heart cannot be con- 
demned to silence. If there is no necessity for speech 
felt by a professing Christian, that professing Chris- 
tian’s faith is a very superficial thing. “We cannot 
but speak the things that we have seen and heard,’ 
said one of the apostles; thereby laying down the 
great charter of freedom of speech for all profound 
convictions. “Thy word was asa fire in my hones 


46 - PHILIP THE EV ANGELIST. 


when I said, I will speak no more in Thy name.” So 
petulant and self-willed was I, “And I was weary 
with forbearing,” and ashamed of my rash vow; “and 
I could not stay.” 

Dear friends, do you carry with you the impulse for 
utterance of Christ’s name wherever you go? And 
is it so sweet in your hearts that you cannot but let 
its sweetness have expression by your lips? Surely, 
surely this spontaneous, instinctive utterance of this 
man, by which a living heart sought to relieve itself, 
puts to shame the “dumb dogs” that make up such 
an enormous proportion of professing Christians. 
And surely such an experience as his may well throw 
a very sinister light on the reality—nay! I will not 
say the reality, that would be too uncharitable, but 
upon the depth and vitality—of the profession of 
Christianity which these silent ones make. 

1]J.—Another lesson that seems to me strikingly 
illustrated by the story with which we are concerned 
is the guidance of a Divine hand in common life, and 
when there are no visible or supernatural signs. 

Philip goes down to Samaria because he must, and 
speaks because he cannot help it. He is next bidden 
to take a long journey, from the centre of the land, 
away down to the southern desert, and at a certain 
point there the Spirit says to him, “Go! join thyself 
to this chariot.” And when his work with the Ethio- 
pian statesman is done, then he is swept away by the 
power of the Spirit of God, as Ezekiel had been long 
before by the banks of the River Chabor, and is set 
down, no doubt all bewildered and breathless, at 
Azotus—the ancient Ashdod—the Philistine city, down 
on the low-lying coast. Was Philip less under Christ’s 


PHILIP THE EVANGELIST. 47 


guidance when miracle ceased and he was left to 
ordinary powers? Did he feel as if deserted by 
Christ, because, instead of being swept by the strong 
wind of heaven, he had to tramp wearily along the 
flat shore, with the flashing Mediterranean reflecting 
the hot sunshine on his left hand? Did it seem to 
him as if his task in preaching the Gospel, in these 
villages throtgh which he passed on his way to 
Czsarea, was less distinctly obedience to the Divine 
command than when he heard the utterance of the 
Spirit, “ Go down to the road which leads to Gaza,which 
is desert.” By no means. To this man, as to every 
faithful soul, the guidance that came through his own 
judgment and common sense, through the instincts 
and impulses of his sanctified nature, by the cireum- 
stances which he devoutly believed to be God's pro- 
vidence, was as truly direct Divine guidance as if all 
the angels of heaven had blown the commandment 
with their trumpets into his waiting and stunned ears. 

And so you and I have to go upon our paths 
without angel voices, or chariots of storm, and to be 
contented with Divine commandments less audible or 
perceptible to our senses than this man had, at one 
point in his career. But if we are wise we shall hear 
Him speaking the word. We shall not be left 
without His voice if we wait for it, stilling our own 
inclinations until His solemn commandment is made 
plain to us, and then stirring up our inclinations 
that they may sway us to swift obedience. There is 
no gulf, for the devout heart, between what is called 
miraculous and what is called ordinary and common. 
Equally in both doth God manifest His will to His 
servants, and equally in both is His presence capable 


48 PHILIP THE EVANGELIST. 


of realization. We do not need to envy Philip’s 
brilliant beginning. Let us see that we imitate his 
quiet close of life. 

IV.—The last lesson that I would draw is this— 
the nobility of persistence in unnoticed work. 

What a contrast to the triumphs in Samaria, and 
the other great extension of the field for the Gospel, 
effected by the God-commanded preaching to the 
eunuch, is presented by the succeeding twenty years 
of altogether unrecorded, but faithful, toil! Persist- 
ence in such unnoticed work was made all the more 
difficult, and to any but a very true man would have 
been all but impossible, by reason of the contrast 
which such work offered to the glories of the earlier 
days. Some of us may have been tried in a similar 
fashion ; all of us have more or less the same kind of 
difficulty to face. Some of us perhaps may have had 
gleams, at the beginning of our career, that seemed 
to give hope of fields of activity more brilliant and 
of work far better than we have ever had or done 
again, in the long weary toil of daily life. Theremay 
have been abortive promises, at the commencement 
of your careers, that seemed to say that you would 
occupy a more conspicuous position than life has had 
really in reserve for you. At any rate, we have all 
had our dreams, for 

“Tf Nature put not forth her power, 
About the opening of the flower, 
Who is there that could live an hour?” 
And no life is all that the liver of it meant it to be 
when he began. We dream of building palaces or 
temples, and we have to content ourselves if we can 
put up some little shed in which we may shelter. 


PHILIP THE EVANGELIST. 49 


Philip, who began so conspicuously, and so suddenly 
ceased to be the special instrument in the hands of the 
Spirit, kept plod, plod, plodding on, with no bitterness 
of heart. For twenty years he had no share in the 
development of Gentile Christianity, of which he had 
sowed the first seed, but had to do much less conspic- 
uous work. He toiled away there in Czsarea patient, 
persevering, and contented, because he loved the work, 
and he loved the work because he loved Him that had 
set it. He seemed to be passed over by his Lord in 
His choice of instruments. It was he who was selected 
to be the first man that should preach to the heathen. 
But did you ever notice that Cornelius was not bid 
to apply to Philip, who was probably in Ozesarea at 
the time, but to send to Joppa for the Apostle Peter ? 
Philip might have sulked, and said: “Why was I 
not chosen to do this work? I will speak no more 
in this Name.” 

It did not fall to his lot to be the apostle to the 
Gentiles. One who came after him was preferred be- 
fore him, and the Hellenist Saul was set to the task 
which might have seemed naturaiir to belong to the 
Hellenist Philip. He too might have said, “He must 
increase, but I must decrease.” No doubt he did say 
it in spirit, with noble self-abnegation and freedom 
from jealousy. He cordially welcomed Paul to his 
house in Ceesarea twenty years afterwards, and rejoiced 
that one sows and another reaps; and so the division 
of labour is the multiplication of gladness. 

A beautiful superiority to all the low thoughts 
that are apt to mar our persistency in unobtrusive 
and unrecognised work is set before us in this story. 
There are many temptations to-day, dear brethren, 

4 


59 PHILIP THE EVANGELIST. 


what with gossiping newspapers and other means of 
publicity for everything that is done, for men to say, 
“Well, if I cannot get any notice for my work I shall 
not do it.” 

Boys in the street will refuse to join in games, say-_ 
ing, “I shall not play unless I am captain, or have the. 
big drum.” And there are not wanting Christian 
men who lay down like conditions. “Play well thy 
part,” whatever it is. Never mind the honour. Do 
the duty God appoints, and He that has the two 
mites of the widow in His treasury will never forget 
any of our works, and at the right time will tell them 
out before His Father, and before the holy angels, 


VL 
The Martyrdom of James, 


“Herop killed James, the brother of John, with the sword.”— 
Aots xii, 2. 


<Z\NE might have expected more than a 
{| clause to be spared, to tell the death of 
a chief man and the first martyr 
amongst the apostles. James, as we 
know, was one of the first group of 
the apostles who were in especial close connection 
with Jesus Christ. He is associated in the Gospels 
with Peter and his brother John, and is always 
named before John, as if he were the more important 
of the two by reason of age or of other circumstances 
unknown to us. But yet we know next to nothing 
about him. In the Acts of the Apostles he is a mere 
lay figure; his name is only mentioned in the cata- 
logue at the beginning, and here again in the brief 
notice of his death. This reticence and the merely 
incidental character of the notice of his martyrdom 
are sufficiently remarkable. I think the lessons of 
the fact, and of the, I was going to say, slight way in 
which the writer of this book refers to it, may perhaps 
be most pointedly brought out if we take four con- 
4* 


52 THE MARTYRDOM OF JAMES. 


trasts—James and Stephen, James and Peter, James 
and John, James and James. 

I.—First, then, James and Stephen. 

Took at the different scale on which the deaths 
of these two are told: the martyrdom of the one 
is beaten out over chapters, the martyrdom of the 
other is crammed intc wa corner of a_ sentence. 
And yet, of the two men, the one who is the less 
noticed filled the larger place officially, and the 
other was only a simple deacon and preacher of 
the Word. The fact that Stephen was the first 
Christian to follow his Lord in martyrdom is not 
sufficient to account for the extraordinary difference. 
The difference is to be sought for in another direction 
altogether. The Bible cares so little about the people 
whom it names because its true theme is the works 
of God, and not of man; and the reason why the 
“ Acts of the Apostles ” kills off one of the first three 
apostles in this fashion is simply that, as the writer 
tells us, his theme is “all that Jesus” continued “to 
do and to teach” after He was taken up. Since it is 
Christ who is the true actor, it matters uncommonly 
little what becomes of James or of the other ten, 
This book is no¢ the “ Acts of the Apostles,” but it is 
the Acts of Jesus Christ. 

I might suggest, too, in like manner, that there is 
another contrast which I have not included in my 
four, between the scale on which the death of Jesus 
Christ is told by Luke, and that on which this death 
is narrated. What is the reason why so dispropor- 
tionate a space of the Gospel is concerned with the 
last two days of our Lord’s life on earth? What is 
the reason why years are leaped over in silence and 


THE MARTYRDOM OF JAMES. 53 


moments are spread out in detail, but that the death 
of a man is only a death, but the death of the Christ 
is the life of the world ? 

It is little needful that we should have poetical, 
emotional, picturesque descriptions of martyrdoms 
and the like in a book which is altogether devoted to 
tracking the footsteps of Christ in history ; and which 
regards men as nothing more than the successive 
instruments of His purpose, and the depositories of 
His grace, 

Another lesson which we may draw from the reti- 
cence in the one case, and the expansiveness in the 
other, that of the protomartyr of the Church, is that of 
a wise indifference to the utterly insignificant accident 
of posthumous memory or oblivion, of us and our 
deeds and sufferings. James sleeps none the less 
sweetly in his grave, or, rather, wakes none the less 
triumphantly in heaven, because his life and death are 
both so scantily narrated. If we “self-infold the large 
results” of faithful service, we need not trouble our- 
selves about its record on earth. 

But another lesson which may be learned from this 
cursory notice of the apostle’s martyrdom is—how 
small a thing death really is!| Looked at from beside 
the Lord of life and death, which is the point of view 
of the author of this narrative, “ great death ” dwindles 
to a very little thing. We need to revise our notions 
if we would understand how trivial it really is. Tous 
it frowns like a black cliff blocking the upper end of 
our valley; but there is a path round its base, and 
though the throat of the pass be narrow, it has room 
for us to get through, and up to the sunny uplands 
beyond. From a mountain top the country below 


54 THE MARTYRDOM OF JAMES. 


seems level plain, and what looked like an impassable 
precipice has dwindled to be indistinguishable. The 
triviality of death, to those who look upon it from the 
heights of eternity, is well represented by these brief 
words which tell of the first breach thereby in the 
circle of the apostles. 

II.—There is another contrast, James and Peter. 

Now this chapter tells of two things: one, the death 
of one of that pair of friends; the other, the miracle 
that was wrought for the deliverance of the other 
from death. Why could not the parts have been ex- 
changed, or why could not the miraculous hand that 
was stretched out to save the one fisherman of Beth- 
saida have been put forth to save the other? Why 
should James be slain, and Peter miraculously 
delivered? A question easily asked; a question not 
to be answered by us. We may say that the one was 
more useful for the development of the Church than ~ 
the other. But we have all seen lives that, to our poor 
vision, seemed to be all but indispensable, ruthlessly 
swept away, and lives that seemed to be, and were, — 
perfectly profitless, prolonged to extreme old age. 
We may say that maturity of character, development: 
of Christian graces, made the man ready for glory 
But we have all seen men struck down when any- 
thing but ready; and men left for the blessing of 
mankind many, many a day after they were far fitter 
for heaven than thousands that, we hope, have gone 
there. 

So all these little explanations do not go down to 
the bottom of the matter, and we are obliged just to 
leave the old question in the loving hands that hold 
life and death for usall. Only we may be sure of this 


THE MARTYRDOM OF JAMES. 55 


that James was as dear to Christ as Peter was, and 
that there was no greater love shown in sending the 
angel that delivered the one from the “ expectation of 
Herod” and the people of the Jews, than was shown 
in sending the angel that stood behind the headsman, 
and directed the stroke of the fatal sword on the neck 
of the other. 

The one was as dear to Christ as the other—aye, 
and the one was as surely, and more blessedly, 


- delivered “from the mouth of the lion” as the other 


was, though the one seemed to be crushed by his 
powerful jaws, and the other seemed to be dragged 
from his teeth. James escaped from Herod when 
Herod slew him, but could not make him unfaithful 
to his Master, and his deliverance was not less com- 
plete than the deliverance of his friend. 

But let us remember, too, that if thus, to two 
equally beloved, there are dealt out these two different 
fates, it must be because that evil, which, as I said, is 
not so great as it looks, is also not so bitter as it tastes. 
There is no real evil, for the loving heart, in the 
stroke that breaks its bands and knits it to Jesus 
Christ. If we are Christians, the deepest desire of 
our souls is fuller communion with our Lord. We 
obtain that, in some stunted and scanty measure, by 
life; but, oh! is it not strange that we should shrink 
from that change which will enable us to possess it 
fully and eternally? The contrast of James and Peter 
may teach us the equal love that presides over the 
life of the living and the death of the dying. 

I]I.—Another contrast is that of James and 
John. 

The close union and subsequent separation by this 


56 THE MARTYRDOM OF JAMES. 


martyrdom, of that. pair of brothers is striking and 
pathetic. They seem to have pursued their humble 
trade of fishermen together, in the little fishing 
village of Bethsaida, apparently as working partners 
with their father Zebedee. They were not parted by 
their discipleship, as was the sad fate of many a 
brother delivered by a brother to death. If we may 
attach any weight to the suggestion that the expres- 
sion in John’s narrative, “He first findeth his own 
brother, Simon,” implies that “the other disciple” 
did the same by his brother, James was brought to 
Jesus by John, and new tenderness and strength were 
thereby given to their affection. They were closely 
associated in their apostleship, and were together the 
companions of Jesus in the chief incidents of His 
life. They were afterwards united in the leadership 
of the Church. By death they were separated so far: 
the one, the first of all the Apostles to “become a 
prey to Satan’s rage,” the other, “lingering out his 
fellows all,” and “dying in bloodless age,” probably 
a hundred years old and more, and looking back 
_ through all the long parting to the brother who had 
joined with him in the wish that even Messiah’s 
Kingdom should not part them, and yet had been 
parted so soon and parted so long. 

Ah! may we not learn the lesson that we should 
recognize the mercy and wisdom of the ministry of 
Death the Separator, and should tread with patience 
the lonely road, do calmly the day’s work, and tarry 
till He comes, though those that stood beside us are 
gone. We may look forward with the assurance that 
“God keeps a niche in Heaven to hide our idols; 
and albeit He breaks them to our face,” yet shall we 


THE MARTYRDOM OF JAMES. as 


find them again, like Memnon’s statue, vocal in the 
rising sunshine of the heavens. 

The brothers, so closely knit, so soon parted, so 
long separated, at last are reunited. Even to us here, 
with the chronology of earth still ours, the years 
between the early martyrdom of James and the death 
of the centenarian John seem but a span, The lapse 
of the centuries that have rolled away since then 
makes the difference of the dates of the two deaths 
seem very small, even to us. What a mere nothing 
it will have looked to them, joined together once more 
beford God! 

TV.—Lastly, James and James. In his hot youth, 
when he deserved the name of a son of thunder 
—so energetic, boisterous, destructive perhaps, he 
was—he and his brother, and their foolish mother, 
whose name is kindly not told us, go to Christ and 
say, “Grant that we may sit, the one on Thy right 
hand and the other on Thy left, in Thy Kingdom.” 
That was what he wished and hoped for, and what he 
got was years of service, and a taste of persecution, 
and finally the swish of the headsman’s sword. 

Yes! And so our dreams are disappointed, and 
their disappointment is often the road to their fulfil- 
ment, for Jesus Christ was answering the prayer, 
“Grant that we may sit on Thy right hand in Thy 
Kingdom,” when He called James to Himself, by the 
brief and bloody passage of martyrdom. James said, 
when he did not know what he meant—and the vow 
was noble though it was ignorant—“we can drink of 
the cup that Thou drinkest.” And, all honour to 
him! he stuck to his vow; and when the cup was 
proffered to him, he manfully, and like a Christian, 


58 THE MARTYRDOM OF JAMES. 


took it and drank it to the dregs; and, I suppose, 
went silently to his grave. But the change between 
his ardent anticipations and his calm resignation, and 
between his foolish dream and the stern reality, may 
well teach ws that, whether our wishes be fulfilled or 
. disappointed, they all need to be purified, and that 
the disappointment of them on earth is often God’s 
way of fulfilling them for us in higher fashion than 
we dreamed or asked. 

So, brethren, let us leave to Him for ourselves, and 
for all dear ones, that question of living or dying. 
Only let us be sure that, whether our lives be long 
like John’s, or short like James’s, “ living or dying we 
are the Lord’s.” And then, whatever be the length of 
life or the manner of death, both will bring us the 
fulfilment of our highest wishes, and will lead us to 
His side, at whose right hand all those shall sit who 
have loved Him here, and, though long parted, shall 
be re-united in common enjoyment of the pleasures 
for evermore which bloom unfading there. “And so 
shall we ever be with the Lord.” 


VIL 
Whose Fmage and Superscription ? 


“ WHOSE image and superscription hath it? ”—LUKE xx. 24. 
ee 1S ple is no unusual thing for antagonists to 
ub join forces in order to crush a third 
ny person obnoxious to both. So in this 
My incident we have an unnatural alliance 
Pe of the two parties in Jewish politics 
who were at daggers drawn. The representatives of 
the narrow conservative Judaism, which loathed a 
foreign yoke, in the person of the Pharisees and 
Scribes, and the Herodians, the partizans of a 
foreigner, and a usurper, lay their heads together to 
propose a question to Christ which they think will 
discredit or destroy Him. They would have answered 
their own question in opposite ways. One would 
have said, “It 2s lawful to give tribute to Cesar”, 
the other would have said, “It is not.” But that isa 
small matter when malice prompts. They calculate, 
“Tf He says, No! we will denounce Him to Pilate as 
a rebel. If He says, Yes! we will go to the people 
and say, Here is a pretty Messiah for you, that has no 
objection to the foreign yoke. Hither way we shall 
end Him,” 


60 WHOSE IMAGE AND SUPERSCRIPTION ? 


Jesus Christ serenely walks through the cobwebs, 
and lays His hand upon the fact. “Let Me see a 
silver penny!”—which, by-the-bye, was the an.ount 
of the tribute—* Whose head is that?” The currency 
of the country proclaims the monarch of the country. 
To stamp his image on the coin is an act of sover- 
eignty. ‘“Czsar’s head declares that you are Cesar's 
subjects, whether you like it or not, and it is too late 
to ask questions about tribute when you pay your 
bills in his money.” “Render to Cesar the things that 
are Ceesar’s.” 

Does not the other side of Christ’s answer—“to 
God the things that are God’s”—rest upon a similar 
fact? Does not the parallelism require that we 
should suppose that the destiny of things to be 
devoted to God is stamped upon them, whatever they 
are, at least as plainly as the right of Czsar to exact 
tribute was inferred from the fact that his money was 
the currency of the country? The thought widens 
out in a great many directions, but I purpose to con- 
fine it to one special line of contemplution now, 
and to take it as suggesting to each of us this great 
truth, that the very make of men shows that they 
belong to God, and are bound to yield themselves to 
Him. If the answer to the question was Jain, and the 
conclusion irresistible, about the penay with the 
image of Tiberius, the answer is no less plain, nor 
the conclusion less irresistible, when we turn the 
interrogation within, and, looking at our own being, 
say to ourselves, “Whose image and superscription 
hath it ?” 

I—First, then, note the image stamped upon man, 
and the consequent obligation. 


WHOSE IMAGE AND SUPERSCRIPTION ? 61 


_ We can very often tell what a thing is for by 
noticing its make. The instructed eye of an anatomist 
will, from a bone, divine the sphere in which the 
creature to whom it belonged was intended to live. 
Just as plainly as gills or lungs, fins, wings, or legs 
and arms, declare the element in which the creature 
that possesses them is intended to move, so plainly 
do our spirits show that God is our Lord since we are 
made in a true sense in His image, and therefore 
only in Him can we find rest. 

I need not remind you, I suppose, of the old word, 
“Let us make man in our own image.” Nor need I, 
I suppose, insist at any length upon the truth that 
though, by the fact of man’s sin, the whole glory and 
splendour of the Divine image in which he was made 
are marred and defaced, there still remain such solemn, 
blessed, and awful resemblances between man and 
God that there can be no mistake as to which beings 
in the universe are the most kindred; nor any mis- 
understanding as to Who it is after whose likeness we 
are formed, and in Whose love and life alone we can 
be blessed. 

I am not going to weary you with thoughts for 
which, perhaps, the pulpit is not the proper place; 
but let me just remind you of one or two points. Is 
there any other being on this earth that can say of 

itself “I am”? God says “I am that Iam.” You 
and I cannot say that, but we alone, in this order 
of things, possess that solemn and awful gift, the 
consciousness of personal being. And, brethren, 
whoever is able to say to himself “Iam” will never 
know rest until he can turn to God and say “Thou 
art,” and then, laying his hand in the Great Father's 


(62 WHOSE IMAGE AND SUPERSCRIPTION ? 


hand, venture to say “ We are.” We are made in His 
image, in that profoundest of all senses. 

But to come to something less recondite. We are 
like God in that we can love; we are like Him in that 
we can perceive the right, and that the right is 
supreme; we are like Him in that we have the power 
to say “I will.” And these great capacities demand 
that the creature who thus knows himself to be, who 
thus knows the right, who thus can love, who thus 
can purpose, resolve, and act, should find his home . 
and his refuge in fellowship with God. 

But if you take a coin, and compare it with the die 
from which it has been struck, you will find that wher- 
ever in the die there is an elevation, in the coin there 
is a sunken place; and conversely. So there are not | 
only resemblances in man to the Divine nature, which 
bear upon them the manifest marks of his destiny, 
but there are correspondences, wants, on our side, 
met by gifts upon His; hollow emptiness in us 
filled, when we are brought into contact with Him, 
by the abundance of His outstanding supplies and 
gifts. So the poorest, narrowest, meanest life has 
in it a depth of desire, an ardour, and sometimes a 
pain and a madness of yearning and longing, which 
nothing but God can fill Though we often mis- 
understand the voice, and so make ourselves miserable 
by vain efforts, our “heart and’ our flesh,” in every 
fibre of our being, “cry out for the living God.” And 
what we all want is some one Pearl of great price 
into which all the dispersed preciousnesses and frag- 
mentary brilliances that dazzle the eyes shall be 
gathered. We want a Person, a living Person, a 
present Person, a sufficient Person, who shall satisfy 


WHOSE IMAGE AND SUPERSCRIPTION? _——‘68 


our hearts, our whole hearts, and that at one and the 
same time, or else we shall never be at rest. 

Because, then, we are made dependent, because we 
possess these wild desires, because immortal thirst 
attaches to our nature, because we have consciences 
that need illuminating, wills that are only free when 
they are absolutely submissive, hearts that are dis- 
satisfied and left yearning, after all the sweetnesses 
of limited, transient, and creatural affections, we bear 
on our very fronts the image of God; and any man 
that wisely looks at himself can answer the question, 
“Whose image and superscription hath it?” in but 
one way. “Inthe image of God created He him.” 

Therefore by loving fellowship, by lowly trust, by 
ardour of love, by submissiveness of obedience, by 
continuity of contemplation, by the sacrifice of self, 
we must yield ourselves to God, if we would pay the 
tribute manifestly owing to the Emperor, by the fact 
that His image and superscription are upon the coin. 

Il.—And so let me ask you to look, in the next 
place, at the defacement of the image and the false 
expenditure of the coin. 

You sometimes get into your hands money on 
which there has been stamped, by mischief, or for 
some selfish purpose, the name of someone else than 
the king’s or queen’s which surrounds the head upon 
it. And in like manner our nature has gone through 

the stamping-press again, and another likeness has 
been deeply imprinted upon it. The image of God, 
which every man has, is in some senses and aspects 
ineffaceable by any conduct of his. But in another 
aspect it is not like the permanent similitude 
stamped upon the solid metal of the penny, but 


64 WHOSE IMAGE AND SUPERSORIPTION ? 


rather, like the reflection, that falls upon some po- 
lished plate, or that is cast upon the white sheet 
from a lantern. If the polished plate is rusty and 
stained, the image is faint and indistinct; if it is 
turned away from the light the image passes. And 
that is what some of you are doing. By living to 
yourselves, by living day in and day out without 
ever remembering God, by yielding to passions, lusts, 
ambitions, low desires, and the like, you are doing 
your very best to scratch out the likeness which still 
lingers in your nature. Is there anyone here that has 
yielded to some lust of the flesh, some appetite, 
drunkenness, gluttony, impurity, or the like, and has 
so sold himself to it as that one part of the Divine 
image, the power of saying “I will,” has pretty nearly 
gone? Iam afraid there must be some who, by long 
submission to passion, have lost the control that 
yeason and conscience and a firm, steady purpose 
ought to give. Is there any man here who, by long 
course of utter neglect of the Divine love, has ceased 
to feel that there is a heart at the centre of the 
universe, or that He has anything to do with it? 
Brethren, the awful power that is given to men of 
degrading themselves till, lineament by lineament, the 
likeness in which they are made vanishes, is the 
saddest and most tragical thing in the world. “Like 
the beasts that perish,’ says one of the psalms, the 
men become who, by the acids and files of world- 
liness and sensuality and passion, have so rubbed 
away the likeness of God that it is scarcely percep- 
tible in them. Do I speak to some such now ? 
If there is nothing else left there is this—a hunger 
for absolute good and for the satisfaction of your 


WHOSE IMAGE AND SUPERSCRIPTION? 65 


desires. That is part of the proof that you are made 
for God, and that only in Him can you find rest. 

All occupation of heart and mind and will and 
active life with other things, to the exclusion of 
supreme devotion to God, is, then, sacrilege and 
rebellion. The emperor’s head was the token of 
sovereignty, and carried with it the obligation to pay 
tribute. Every fibre in your nature protests against 
the prostitution of itself to anything short of God. 
You remember the story in the Old Testament about 
that saturnalia of debauchery, the night when Babylon 
fell, when Belshazzar, in the very wantonness of 
godless insolence, could not be satisfied with drinking 
his wine out of anything less sacred than the vessels 
that had been brought from the Temple at Jerusalem. 
That is what many of us are doing, taking the sacred 
cup which is meant to be filled with the wine of the 
Kingdom, and pouring into it the foaming but poison- 
ous beverages which steal away our brains and make 
us drunk, the moment before our empire totters to its 
fall and we to our ruin. “All the consecrated things 
of the house of the Lord they dedicated to Baal,” 
_ says one of the narratives in the Book of Chronicles. 
That is what some of us are doing, taking the soul 
that is meant to be consecrated in God and find its 
blessedness there, and offering it to false gods in whose 
service there is no blessedness, 

For, dear friends, I beseech you, lay this to heart, 
that you cannot thus use the Godlike being that you 
possess, without bringing down upon your heads 
miseries and unrest. The raven, that black bird of 
evil omen, went out from the Ark, and flew homeless 
over the weltering ocean, The souls that seek not 

5 


66 WHOSE IMAGE AND SUPERSCRIPTION ? 


God fly thus, strangers and restless, through a drowned 
and lifeless world. The dove came back with an 
olive branch in its beak. Souls that are wise, and 
have made their nests in the sanctuary, can fold 
their wings and be at peace there. As the ancient 
saint said, “We are made for God, and only in God 
have we rest.” “Qh, that thou hadst hearkened to 
me, then had thy peace been as a river, and thy 
righteousness as the waves of the sea.” Cannot you 
see the blessed, gentle gliding of the full stream 
through the meadows, with the sunshine upon its 
ripples? Such is the heart that has yielded itself to 
God. In solemn contrast to that lovely image, the 
same prophet has, for a repeated refrain in his book, 
“the wicked is like the troubled sea which cannot 
rest,” but goes moaning round the world, and breaking 
in idle foam upon every shore, and still is unquiet for 
evermore. Brethren, only when we render to God 
the thing that is God’s—our hearts and ourselves— 
have we repose. 

III.—Now, lastly, notice the restoration and perfect- 
ing of the defaced image. 

Because man is like God, it is possible for God to 
become like man. The possibility of Revelation and 
of Redemption by an incarnate Saviour depend 
upon the reality of the fact that man is made 
in the image of God. Thus there comes to us that 
Divine Christ, who “lays His hand upon both,” 
and being the express image of His person, so that 
He can say “He that hath seen Me hath seen 
the Father,” “was in all points made like unto His 
brethren,” with only the exception that the deface- 
ment which had obliterated the Divine image in 


va 


WHOSE IMAGE AND SUPERSCRIPTION? 67 


them left it clear, untarnished, and sharply cut in 
Him. 

Therefore, because Jesus Christ has come, our 
Brother, “bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh,” 
made like unto us, and in our likeness presenting to 
us the very image of God and eradiation of His light, 
therefore no defacement that it is possible for men or 
devils to make on this poor humanity of ours need be 
irrevocable and final. All the stains may be blotted 
out, all the usurping superscriptions may be removed 
and the original imprint restored. The dints may 
be elevated, the bulges may be lowered, the tarnish 
and the rust may be rubbed off, and, fairer than 
before, the likeness of God may be stamped on every 
one of us, “after the image of Him that created 
us,” if only we will turn ourselves to that dear Lord, 
and cast our souls upon Him. Christ hath become 
like us that we might become like Him, and therein 
be partakers of the Divinenature. “We all, reflecting 
as a glass does the glory of the Lord, may be changed 
into the same image, from glory to glory.” 

Nor do the possibilities stop there, for we look 
forward to a time when, if I might pursue the 
metaphor of my text, the coinage shall be called in 
and reminted, in new forms of nobleness and of 
likeness. We have before us this great prospect, that 
“we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He 
is”; and in all the glories of that heaven we shall 
partake, for all that is Christ’s is ours, and we that 
“have borne the image of the earthly shall also bear 
the image of the heavenly.” 

I come to you, then, with this old question : 
“Whose image and superscription hath it?” and the 

5* 


68 WHOSE IMAGE AND SUPERSCRIPTION ? 


old exhortation founded thereupon: “ Render there- 
fore to God the thing that is God's”; and yield your- 
selves to Him. Another question 1 would ask, and 
pray that you may lay it to heart, “To what purpose 
is this waste?” “What are you doing with the 
silver penny of your own soul?” “Wherefore do ye 
spend it for that which is not bread?” Give your- 
selves to God; trust yourselves to the Christ who is 
like you, and like Him. And, resting upon His great 
love, you will be saved from the prostitution of 


capacities, and the vain attempts to satisfy your souls ~ 


with the husks of earth; and whilst you remain here 


will be made partakers of Christ’s life, and growingly — 


of His likeness, and, when you remove yonder, your 
body, soul, and spirit will be conformed to His image, 
and transformed into the likeness of His glory, 
“according to the mighty working whereby He is able 
to subdue all things unto Himself.” 


VIII. 


tow to Work the Work of God. 


“THEN said they unto Him, What shall we do, that we might work 
the works of God? Jesus answered and said unto them, This 
is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom He hath 
sent.”—JOBN vi. 28, 29. 


‘> Sp—7pHE feeding of the five thousand was the 
“Al y most “popular” of Christ’s miracles. 
\Y Ay, between a smile and a sigh, that 
———_——_- “when the people saw it, they said, 
This is of a truth that Prophet that should come into 
the world,” and they were so delighted with Him, and 
with it, that they wanted to get up an insurrection on 
the spot, and make a King of Him. I wonder if 
_there are any of that sort of people left. If two men 
were to come into Manchester to-morrow morning, 
and one of them were to offer material good, and the 
other wisdom and peace of heart, which of them, do 
you think, would have the larger following? We 
need not cast a stone at the unblushing, frank admira- 
tion that these men had for a Prophet who could feed 
them, for that is exactly the sort of prophet that a 


great number of Englishmen would like best, if they 
spoke out, 


The evangelist tells us, with something 


70 HOW TO WORK THE WORK OF GOD. 


So Jesus Christ had to escape from the incon- 
venient enthusiasm of these mistaken admirers, of 
His; and they followed Him in their eagerness, but 
were met with words which lifted them into another 
region and damped their zeal. He tried to turn away 
their thoughts from the miracle to a far loftier gift, 
He contrasted the trouble which they willingly took in 
order to get a meal with their indifference as to 
obtaining the true bread from heaven, and He bade 
them work for it just as they had shown themselves 
ready to work for the other. 

They put to Him this question of my text, so 
strangely blending, as it does, right and wrong, “ You 
have bid us work; tell us how to work? What must 
we do that we may work the works of God?” Christ 
answers, in words that illuminate their confusions, 
and clear the whole matter, “ This is the work of God, 
that ye believe on Him whom He hath sent.” 

I—Faith, then, is a work. 

You know that the commonplace of evangelical 
teaching opposes faith to works ; and the opposition is 
perfectly correct, ifit be rightly understood. But I have 
a strong impression that a great deal of our preaching | 
goes clean over the heads of our hearers, because we 
take for granted, and they fancy, that they understand 
the meaning of terms because the terms themselves 
are so familiar. And I believe that many people go 
to churches and chapels all their lives long, and 
hear this doctrine dinned into them, that they are | 
to be saved by faith, and not by works, and yet 
never have a definite understanding of what it all 
means. 

So let me just for a moment try to clear up the 


HOW TO WORK THE WORK OF GOD. 71 


terms of this apparently paradoxical statement, faith 
is work. What do we mean by faith? What do you 
mean by saying that you have faith in your friend, in 
your wife, in your husband, in your guide? You 
simply mean, and we mean, that you trust the person, 
grasping him by the act of trust. On trust the whole 
fabric of human society depends, as well as, in another 
aspect of the same expression, does the whole fabric 
of Manchester commerce. Faith, confidence, the 
leaning of myself on one discerned to be true, trusty, 
strong, sufficient for the purpose in hand, whatever 
it may be—that, and nothing more mysterious, 
nothing further away from daily life and the common 
emotions which knit us to one another, is, as I take it, 
what the New Testament means when it insists upon 
faith. 

Ah! we all exercise it. We put it forth on certain 
low levels and directions. “The heart of her husband 
doth safely trust in her,” is, I have no doubt, the 
short summary of the happy lives of many in this 
placenow. Have you none of that confidence to spare 
for God? Is it all meant to be poured out upon 
weak, fallible, changeful creatures like ourselves, and 
none of it to rise to the One in whom absolute con- 
fidence may eternally be fixed ? 

But then, of course, as we may see by the exercise of 
the same emotion in regard to one another, the under 
side of this confidence in God or Christ is diffidence of 
myself. There is no real exercise of confidence which 
does not involve, as an essential part of itself, the 
going out from myself in order that I may lay all 
the weight and responsibility of the matter in hand 
upon him in whom I trust. And so Christian faith is 


72 HOW TO WORK THE WORK OF GOD. 


compounded of these two elements, or rather, it has 
these two sides which correspond to one another. The 
same figure is convex or concave according as you look 
at it from one side or another. If you look at faith 
from the one side, it rises towards God; if from the 
other, it hollows itself out into a great emptiness. 
And so the under side of faith is distrust; and he 
that puts his confidence in God thereby goes out 
of himself, and declares that in himself there is 
nothing to rest upon. 

Now that two-sided confidence and diffidence, trust 
and distrust, which are one, is truly a work. It is not 
an easy one either; it is the exercise of our own 
inmost nature. It is an effort of will. It has to be 
done by coercing ourselves. It has to be maintained 
in the face of many temptations and difficulties. The 
contrast between faith and work is between an inward 
emotion and a crowd of outward performances. But 
the faith which knits me to God is my act, and I am 
responsible for it. 

But yet it is not a work, just because it is a ceasing 
from my own works, and going out from myself that 
He may enter in. Only remember, when we say, 
“Not by works of righteousness, but by the faith of 
Christ,” we are but proclaiming that the inward man 
must exercise that act of self-abnegation and con- 
fession of its own impotence, and ceasing from all 
reliance on anything which it does, whereby, and 
whereby alone, it can be knit to God, “Labour not 
for the meat that perisheth, but for that meat which 
endureth unto eternal life. . . . Thisis thé work 
of God, that ye believe.” You are responsible for 
doing that, or for not doing it, 


HOW TO WORK THE WORK OF GOD. 78 


If.—Secondly, faith, and not a multitude of separate 
acts, is what pleases God. 

Mark the difference between the form of the ques- 
tion and that of the answer. The people say, “ What 
are we to do that we may work the works of God ?” 
Christ answers in the singular. “This is the work.” 
They thought of a great variety of observances and 
deeds. He gathers them all up into one. They 
thought of a pile, and that the higher it rose the 
more likely they were to be accepted. He unified the 
requirement, and He brought it all down to this one 
act, in which all other acts are included, and on 
which alone the whole weight of a man’s salvation is 
to rest. ‘“ What shall we do that we might work the 
works of God?” is a question asked in all sorts of 
ways, by the hearts of men all round about us; and 
what a babble of answers come! The priest says, 
“Rites and ceremonies.” The thinker says, “Culture, 
education.” The moralist says, “Do this, that, and 
the other thing”; and enumerates a whole series of 
separate acts. Jesus Christ says, “One thing is need- 
ful. . . . This is the work of God.” He brushes 
away the sacerdotal answer, and the answer of the 
mere moralist, and He says, “No! Not do; but 
trust.” In so far as that is act, it is the only act you 
need, 

That is evidently reasonable. The man is more 
than his work ; motive is more important than action ; 
character is deeper than conduct. God is pleased, 
not by what men do, but by what men are. We must 
be first, and then we shall do. And it is obviously 
reasonable, because we can find analogies to the 
requirement in all other relations of life. What 


74 HOW TO WORK THE WORK OF GOD. 


a ee 


would you care for a child that scrupulously obeyed, 
and did not love or trust? What would a prince 
think of a subject that was ostentatious in acts of 
loyalty, and all the while was plotting, and nurturing 
treason in his heart ? 

If doing separate acts of righteousness is the way 
to work the works of God, then no man has ever done 
them. For it is a plain fact that every man falls 
below his own ccnscience—which conscience is less 
scrupulous than the Divine law. The worst of us 
know a great deal more than the best of us; and 
our lives, universally, are, at the best, lives of partial 
effort after unreached attainments of obedience and of 
virtue. 

But even supposing that we could perform, far more 
completely than we do, the requirements of our own 
consciences, and conform to the evident duties of our 
position and relations, do you think that without 
faith we should be therein working the works of 
God? Suppose a man were able fully to realize his own 
ideal of goodness, without any confidence in God 
underlying all his acts; do you think that these 
would be acts that would please God? It seems to me 
that, however lovely and worthy of admiration, looked 
at with human eyes only, many lives are, which have 
nobly and resolutely fought against evil, and struggled 
after good, if they have lacked the crowning grace of 
doing this for God’s sake they lack, I was going to say, 
almost everything. I will not say that, but I will say 
they lack that which makes them acceptable, well- 
pleasing to Him. The poorest, the most imperfect 
realization of our duty and ideal of conduct, which 
has in it a love towards God and a faith in Him that 


HOW TO WORK THE WORK OF GOD. 75 


would fain do better if it could, is a nobler thing, I 
venture to say, in the eyes of Heaven—which are the 
truth-seeing eyes—than the noblest achievements of 
an untrusting soul. It does not seem to me that that 
is bigotry or narrowness or anything else but the plain 
deduction from the truths, that a man’s relation to God 
is the deepest thing about him, and that if that be right, 
other things will come right, and if that be wrong, 
nothing is as right as it might be. 

Here we have Jesus Christ laying the foundation 
for the doctrine which is often said to be Pauline, as 
if that meant something else than coming from Jesus 
Christ. We often hear people say, “Oh! your evan- 
gelical teaching of justification by faith, and all that, 
comes out of Paul’s epistles, not out of Christ’s teaching, 
nor out of John’s Gospel.” Well! There isa difference, 
which it is blindness not to recognize, between the 
seeds of teaching in our Lord’s word, and the flowers 
and fruit of these seeds, which we get in the more 
systematized and developed teaching of the epistles, 
I frankly admit that, and I should expect it, with my 
belief as to who Christ is, and who Paulis. But in 
that saying ‘‘ This is the work of God, that ye believe 
on Him whom He hath sent,” is the germ of everything 
that Paul has taught us about the works of the law 
being of no avail, and faith being alone and unfailing 
in its power of uniting men to God, and bringing 
them into the possession of eternal life. The saying 
stands in John’s Gospel. And so Paul and John alike 
received, though in different fashions, and wrought 
out on different lines of subsequent teaching, the 
germinal impulse from these words of the Master. 
Let us hear no more about salvation by faith being a 


76 HOW TO WORK THE WORK OF GOD. 


Pauline addition to Christ’s Gospel, for the lips of 
Christ Himself have declared “this is the work of 
God, that ye believe on Him whom He hath sent.” 

III1.—Thirdly, this faith is the productive parent of 
all separate works of God. 

The teaching that I have been trying to enforce 
has, I know, been so presented as to make a pillow 
for indolence, and to be closely allied to immorality. 
It has been so presented. It has not been so pre- 
sented half as often as its enemies would have us 
believe. For I know of but very few, and those by 
no means the most prominent and powerful of the 
preachers of the great doctrine of salvation by faith, 
who have not added, as its greatest teacher did: 
“Let ours also be careful to maintain good works for 
necessary uses.” But the true teaching is not that trust 
is a substitute for work, but that it is the foundation 
of work. The Gospel command is, first of all, trust; then, 
set yourselves to do the works of faith, Faith works 
by love, it is the opening of the heart to the entrance 
of the life of Christ, and, of course, when that life 
comes in, it will act in the man in a manner appro- 
priate to its origin and source, and he that by faith 
has been joined to Jesus Christ, and has opened his 
heart to receive the life of Christ, will, as a matter of 
course, bring forth, in the measure of his faith, the 
fruits of righteousness. 

We are surely not despising fruits and flowers when 
we insist upon the root from which they shall come. 
A man may take separate acts of partial goodness, as 
you see children in the springtime sticking daisies on 
the spikes of a thorn-twig picked from the hedges, 
But these will die. The basis of all righteousness is 


HOW TO WORK THE WORK OF GOD. may 


faith, and the manifestation of faith is practical 
righteousness. “Show Me thy faith by thy works” is 
Christ’s teaching quite as much as it is the teaching 
of His sturdy servant, James, And so, dear friends, we 
are going by the direct road to enrich lives with all 
the beauties of possible human perfection when we 
say, “Begin at the beginning. The longest way 
round is the shortest way home; trust Him with.all 
ycur hearts first, and that will effloresce into whatso- 
ever things are lovely, and whatsoever things are of 
good report.” In the beautiful metaphor of the 
Apostle Peter, in his second Epistle, Faith is the 
damsel who leads in the chorus of consequent graces ; 
and we are exhorted to “add to our faith virtue,” and 
all the other that unfold themselves in harmonious 
sequence from that one central source. - 

If I had time I should be glad to turn for a 
moment to the light which such considerations cast 
upon subjects that are largely occupying the attention 
of the Christian Church to-day. I should like to 
insist that, before you talk much about applied 
Christianity, you make very sure that in men there isa 
Christianity to apply. I venture to profess my own 
humble belief that in ninety-nine cases out of a 
hundred Christian ministers and churches will do 
most for the social, political, and intellectual and 
moral advancement of men and the elevation of the 
people by sticking to their own work and preaching 
this Gospel: “This is the work of God, that ye 
believe on Him whom He hath sent.” 

TV.—Lastly, this faith secures the bread of life. 

That bread of life is the starting-point of the whole 
conversation, In the widest possible sense it is what- 


78 HOW TO WORK THE WORK OF GOD. 


soever truly stills the hunger of the immortal soul. 
In a deeper sense, it is the person of Jesus Christ 
Himself, for He not only says that He will give, but 
that He is the Bread of Life. And, in the deepest 
sense of all, it is His flesh broken for us in His sacri- 
fice on the cross. That bread is a gift. So the 
paradox results which stands in our text—work for 
the bread which God will give. If it be a gift, that 
fact determines what sort of work must be done in 
order to possess it. Ifit be a gift, then the only work 
is to accept it. Ifit be a gift, then we are out of the 
region of quid pro quo; and have not to bring, as 
Chinamen do in trading, great strings of copper cash 
that, all added up together, do not amount to a shilling, 
in order to buy what God will bestow upon us. If it be 
a gift, then to trust the giver and to accept the gift are 
the only conditions that are requisite. 

It is not a condition that He has invented out of 
His own head, so to speak. The necessity of it is 
lodged deep in the very nature of the case. Air 
cannot get to the lungs of a mouse in an air-pump. 
Light cannot come into a room where all the shutters 
are up and the keyhole stopped. If a man pleases 
to perch himself on some little stool of his own, with 
glass legs to it, and to take away his hand from the 
conductor, no electricity will come to him. If I 
choose to lock my lips, Jesus Christ does not prise 
open my clenched teeth to put the bread of life into 
an unwilling mouth. If weask we receive; if we take 
We possess. 

And so the paradox comes about, that we work for 
a gift, with a work which is not work, because it is a 
departure from self. It is the same blessed paradox 


HOW TO WORK THE WORK OF GOD. 79 


which the prophet spoke when he said, “Buy .. . 
without money and without price.” Oh! what a 
burden of hopeless effort and weary toil—like that ot 
the man that had to roll the stone up the hill, which 
ever slipped back again—is lifted from our shoulders, 
by such a word as this that I have been poorly try- 
ing to speak about now. “Thou art careful and 
troubled about many things,” poor soul! trying to be 
good ; trying to fight yourself, and the world, and the 
devil. Try the other plan, and listen to Him saying 
“Give up self-imposed effort in thine own strength, 
Take, eat, this is My body, which is broken for you.” 


1X. 
The Gift and the Giver. 


“Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of 
God, and who it is that saith unto thee, Give Me to drink, thou 
wouldst have asked of Him, and He would have given thee 
living water.”—Joun iv. 10. 


°&\°-S-7pHIS Gospel has two characteristics 
\) 6) seldom found together; deep thought 
and vivid character drawing. Nothing 
can be more clear cut and dramatic 
than the scene in the chapter before 
us. There is not a word of description of this 
Samaritan woman. She paints herself, and it is not a 
beautiful picture. She is apparently of the peasant 
class, from a little village nestling on the hill above 
the plain, come down in the broiling sunshine to 
Jacob’s well. She is of mature age, and has had a 
not altogether reputable past. She 1s frivolous, ready 
to talk with strangers, with a tongue quick to turn 
grave things into jests ; and yet she possesses, hidden 
beneath masses of unclean vanities, a conscience and 
a yearning for something better than she has, which 
Christ’s words awoke, and which were finally so 
enkindled as to make her fit to receive the full 
declaration of His Messiahship, with which Pharisees 
and priests could not be trusted. 


THE GIFT AND THE GIVER. - 81 


I need scarcely do more than remind you of the 
way in which the conversation between this strangely- 
assorted pair began. The solitary Jew, sitting spent 
with travel on the well, asks for a draught of water; 
not in order to get an opening for preaching, but 
because He needs it. She replies with an exclama- 
tion of light wonder, half a jest and half a sarcasm, 
and challenging a response in the same tone. 

But Christ lifts her to a higher level by the words 
of my text, which awed levity, and prepared for a 
fuller revelation. “Thou dost wonder that I, being a 
Jew, ask drink of thee,a Samaritan. If thou knewest 
who I am, thy wonder at My asking would be more. 
If thou knewest what I have to give, we should 
change places, and thou wouldest ask, and I should 
bestow.” . 

So, then, we have here gift, Giver, way of getting, 
and ignorance that hinders asking. Let us look at 
these. 

I.—First, the gift of God. Now it is quite clear 
that our Lord means the same thing, whatever it may 
be, by the two expressions, the “gift of God” and the 
“living water.” For, unless He does, the whole 
sequence of my text falls to pieces. “ Living water” 
was suggested, no doubt, by the circumstances of the 
. Moment. There, in the well, was an ever-springing 
source, and, says He, a like supply, ever welling up 
for thirsty lips and foul hands, ever sweet and ever 
sufficient, God is ready to give. 

We may remember hoy, all through Scripture, we 
hear the tinkle of these watersas they run. The force 
of the expression is to be gathered largely from the 
Old Testament and the uses of the metaphor there. 

6 


82 THE GIFT AND THE GIVER. 


es 


It has been supposed that by the “living water” which 
God gives is here meant some one specific gift, such as 
that of the Holy Spirit, which sometimes is expressed 
by the metaphor. Rather I should be disposed to 
say the “living water” is eternal life. “With Thee is 
the fountain of life.” And so, in the last resort, the 
gift of God is God Himself. Nothing else will suffice 
for us, brethren. We need Him, and we need none 
but Him. 

Our Lord, in the subsequent part of this conversation, 
again touches upon this great metaphor, and suggests 
one or two characteristics, blessings, and excellences 
of it. “It shall bein Him.” It issomething that we 
may carry about with us in our hearts, inseparable 
from our being, free from all possibility of being 
filched away by violence, being rent from us by sorrows, 
or even being parted from us by death. What a man 
has outside of him he only seems to have. Our only 
real possessions are those which have passed into the 
substance of our souls. All else we shall leave behind. 
The only good is inward good; and this water of life 
slakes our thirst, because it flows into the deepest 
place of our being, and abides there for ever. 

Oh! you that are seeking your satisfaction from 
fountains that remain outside of you after all your 
efforts, learn that every one of them, by reason of 
their externality, will sooner or later be “broken 
cisterns that can hold no water.” AndI beseech you, 
if you want rest for your souls, and stilling for their 
yearnings, look for it there, where only it can be found, 
in Him, who not only dwells in the heavens to rule 
and to shower down blessings, but enters into the 
waiting heart and abides there, the inward, and there- 


THE GIFT AND THE GIVER. 83 


fore the only real, possession and riches, “It shall 
be in him a fountain of water.” 

“Tt springs up”—with an immortal energy, with 
ever fresh fulness, by its own inherent power, needing 
no pumps nor machinery, but ever welling forth its 
refreshment, an emblem of the joyous energy and 
continual freshness of vitality, which is granted to 
those who carry God in their hearts, and therefore can 
never be depressed beyond measure, nor ever feel that 
the burden of life is too heavy to bear, or its sorrows 
too sharp to endure. 

It springs up “into eternal life,” for water must 
seek its source, and rise to the level of its origin, and 
this fountain within a man, ‘that reaches up ever 
towards the eternal life from which it came, and 
which it gives to its possessor, will bear him up— 
as some strong spring will lift the clods that choked 
its mouth—towards the eternal life which is native to 
it, and therefore native to him. 

Brethren, no man is so poor, so low, so narrow in 
capacity, so limited in heart and head, but that he 
needs a whole God to make him restful. Nothing 
else will. To seek for satisfaction elsewhere is like 
sailors in their desperation, when the water-tanks are 
empty, slaking their thirst with the treacherous blue 
that washes cruelly along the battered sides of their 
ship, A moment’s alleviation is followed by the 
recurrence in tenfold intensity of the pangs of thirst, 
and by madness, and death. Do not drink the salt 
water that flashes and rolls by your side, when you 
can have recourse to the fountain of life that is with 
God. 

“Oh!” you say, “commonplace, threadbare, pulpit 

6* 


84 THE GIFT AND THE GIVER. 


rhetoric.” Yes. Do you live as if it were true? It 
will never be too threadbare to be dinned into your 
ears, until it has passed into your lives and regulated 
them. 

II.—Now, in the next place, notice the Giver. 

Jesus Christ blends in one sentence, startling in its 
boldness, the gift of God, and Himself as the 
Bestower. This Man, exhausted for want of a draught 
of water, speaks with parched lips a claim most 
- singularly in contrast with the request which He had 
just made: “I will give thee the living water.” No 
wonder that the woman was bewildered, and could 
only say, “The well is deep, and Thou hast nothing to 
draw with.” She might have said, “Why then dost 
Thou ask me?” The words were meant to create 
astonishment, in order that the astonishment might 
awaken interest, and thus lead to the capacity for 
further illumination. Suppose you had been there, 
had seen the Man whom she saw, had heard the two’ 
things that she heard, and knew no more about Him 
than she knew, what would you have thought of 
Him and His words? Perhaps you would have been 
more contemptuous than she was. See to it that, 
since you know so much that explains and warrants 
them, you do not treat Him worse than she did. 

Jesus Christ claims to give God’s gifts. He is able 
to give to that poor, frivolous, impure-hearted and 
impure-lived woman, at her request, the eternal life, 
which shall still all the thirst of her soul, that had 
often in the past been satiated and disgusted, but had 
never been satisfied by any of its draughts. 

And He claims that, in this giving, He is something 
more than a channel, because, says He, “If thou 


= 


THE GIFT AND THE GIVER. 85 


hadst asked of Me I would give thee.” We some- 
times think of the relation between God and Christ 
as being typified by that of some land-locked sea 
amidst remote mountains, and the affluent that brings 
its sparkling treasures to the thirsting valley. But 
Jesus Christ is no mere vehicle for the conveyance of 
a Divine gift, but His own heart, His own power, His 
own love are in it; and it is His gift just as much as 
it is God’s. 

_ Now I do not do more than pause for one moment 
to ask you to think of what inference is necessarily 
involved in such a claim as this. If we know any- 
thing about Jesus Christ at all, we know that He 
talked in this tone, not occasionally but habitually. 
It will not do to pick out other bits of His character 
or actions and admire these and ignore the character- 
istic of His teachings—His claims for Himself. And 
I have only this one word to say, if Jesus Christ ever 
said anything the least like the words of my text, and 
if they were not true, what was He but a fanatic that 
had lost His head in the fancy of His inspiration ? 
And if He said these words and they were true, what 
is He then? What but that which this Gospel 
insists from its beginning to its end that He was—the 
Eternal Word of God, by whom all Divine revelation 

,from the beginning has been made, and who at last 
“became flesh” that we might “receive of His 
fulness,” and therein “be filled with all the fulness of 
God”? Other alternative I, for my part, see none. 

But I would have you notice, too, the connection 
between these human needs of the Saviour and His 
power to give the Divine gift. Why did He not 
simply say to this woman, “If thou knewest who I 


86 THE GIFT AND THE GIVER. 


am?” Why did He use this periphrasis of my text, 
“ Who is it that saith unto thee, ‘Give me to drink’”? 
Why but because He wished to fix her attention on 
the startling contradiction between His appearance 
and His claims? On the one hand He asserts Divine 
prerogative, on the other He forces into prominence 
human weakness and necessity, because these two 
things, human weakness and Divine prerogative, are 
in Him inseparably braided together and intertwined. 
Some of you will remember the great scene in Shake- 
speare where the weakness of Ozsar is urged as a 
reason for rejecting his imperial authority :— 
“ Ay! and that tongue of his, that bade the Romans 
Mark him, and write his speeches in their hooks, 


Alas! it cried, ‘Give me some drink, 
Like a sick girl.” 


And the inference that is drawn is, How can he be fit 
to be a ruler of men? But we listen to our Cesar 
and Emperor, when He asks this woman for water, 
and when He says on the cross, “I thirst,” and we 
feel that these are not the least of His titles to be 
crowned with many crowns. They bring Him nearer 
to us, and they are the means by which His love 
reaches its end, of bestowing upon us all, if we will 
have it, the cup of salvation. Unless He had said 
the one of these two things, He never could have said 
the other. Unless the dry lips had petitioned, “Give 
Me to drink,” the gracious lips could never have said, 
“T will give thee living water.” Unless, like Jacob 
of old, this Shepherd could say, “In the day - the 
drought consumed Me,” it would have been impossible 
that the flock “shall hunger no more, neither shall 
they thirst any more, . ... for the Lamb that is 


TRE GIFT AND THE GIVER, 87 


in the midst of the throne shall lead them to living 
fountains of water.” 

III—Again, notice how to get the gift. 

Christ puts together, as if they were all but con- 
temporaneous, “ thou wouldst have asked of Me,” and 
“T would have given thee.” The hand on the telegraph 
transmits the message, and back, swift as the lightning, 
flashes the response. The condition, the only condition, 
and the indispensable condition, of possessing that 
water of life, the summary expression for all the gifts 
of God in Jesus Christ, which at the last are essentially 
God Himself, is the desire to possess it, turned to 
Jesus Christ. Is it not strange that men should not 
desire? is it not strange and sad that such foolish 
creatures are we that we do not want what we want; 
that our wishes and needs are often diametrically 
opposite? All men desire happiness, but some of us 
have so vitiated our tastes and our palates by fiery 
intoxicants, that the water of life seems utterly 
tasteless and unstimulating, and so we will rather go 
back again to the delusive, poisoned drinks than glue 
our lips to the river of God’s pleasures, 

But it is not enough that there should be the desire, 
It must be turned to Him. In fact, the asking of my 
text, so far as you and I are concerned, is but another 
way of designating the great key-word of personal 
religion, faith in Jesus Christ. For they who ask 
know their necessity, are convinced of the power of. 
him to whom they appeal to grant their requests, and 
rely upon his love to do so. And these three things, 
the sense of need, the conviction of Christ’s ability to 
save and to satisfy, and of His infinite love that 
desires to make us blessed—these three things fused 


88 THE GIFT AND THE GIVER. | 


together make the faith which receives the gift of 
God. 

Remember, brethren, that another of the Scriptural 
expressions for the act of trusting in Him is taking, 
not asking. You do not need to ask, as if for some- 
thing that is not provided. What we all need to do 
is to open our eyes to see what is there, if we like to 
put out our hands and take it. Why should we be 
saying, “Give me to drink,” when a pierced hand 
reaches out to us the cup of salvation, and says, “ Drink 
ye all of it”? Ho, everyone that “thirsteth, come 

and drink . . . without money and with- 
out price.” 

There is no other condition but desire, turned to — 
Christ, and that is the necessary condition. God 
cannot give men salvation, as veterinary surgeons 
drench unwilling horses—forcing the medicine down 
their throats through clenched teeth. There must be 
the opened mouth, and wherever there is, there will 
be the full supply. “Ask, and ye shall receive;” 
take, and ye shall possess. 

IV.—Lastly, mark the ignorance that prevents 
asking. 

Jesus Christ looked at this poor woman and dis- 
cerned in her—though, as I said, it was hidden beneath 
mountains of folly and sin—a thirsty soul that was 
dimly longing for something better. And He believed 
that, if once the mystery of His being and *the mercy 
of God’s gifts were displayed before her, she would 
melt into a yearning of desire that is certain to be 
fulfilled. In some measure the same thing is true of 
us all. For surely, surely, if only you saw realities, 
and things as they are, some of you would not be 


THE GIFT AND THE GIVER. 89 


content to continue as you are—without this water of 
life. Blind! blind! blind! are the men who grope at 
noonday as in the dark and turn away from Jesus. 
If you knew, not with the head only, but with the 
whole nature—if you knew the thirst of your soul, the 
sweetness of the water, the readiness of the Giver, and 
the dry and parched land to which you condemn 
yourselves by your refusal, surely you would bethink 
yourself, and fall at His feet and ask, and get, the 
water of life. 

But, brethren, there is a worse case than ignorance; 
there is the case of people who know and refuse, not 
by reason of imperfect knowledge, but by reason of 
averted will. And I beseech you to ponder whether 
that may not be your condition. “Whosoever will, 
let him come.” “Ye will not come unto Me that ye 
might have life.” I do not think I venture much 
when I say that I am sure there are people hearing 
me now, not Christians, who are as certain, deep 
down in their hearts, that the only rest of the soul is 
in God, and the only way to get it is through Christ, 
as any saint of God’s ever was. But the knowledge 
does not touch their will, because they like poison 
and they do not want life. 

Oh! dear friends, the instantaneousness of Christ’s 
answer, and the certainty of it, are as true for each of 
us as they were for this woman. The offer is made to 
us all, just as it was to her. We can gather round 
that Rock like the Israelites in the wilderness, and 
slake every thirst of our souls from its out-gushing 
streams. Jesus Christ says to each of us, as He 
did to her, tenderly, warningly, invitingly, and yet 


90 THE GIFT AND THE GIVER. 


rebukingly, “If thou knewest . . . thou wouldst 
ask, . . . and I would give.” 

Take care lest, by continual neglect, you force Him 
at last to change His words, and to lament over you, 
as He did over the city that He loved so well, and yet 
destroyed. “If thou hadst known in thy day the 
things that belong to thy peace, But now they are 
hid from thine eyes,” 


xX. 
Christ at the Door. 


“Brnonp! I stand at the door and knock; if any man hear My 
voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup 
with him, and he with Me.”—Rkyv, iii. 20. 


‘ANY of us are familiar, I dare say, with 
the devoutly imaginative rendering of 
the first part of these wonderful words, 
which we owe to the genius of a living 
painter. In it we see the fast shut 
door, with rusted hinges, all overgrown with rank, 
poisonous weeds, which tell how long it has been 
closed. There stands, amid the night dews and the 
darkness, the patient Son of Man, one hand laid on 
the door, the other bearing a light, which may 
perchance flash through some of its chinks. In His 
face are love repelled and pity all but wasted ; in the 
touch of His hand are gentleness and authority. 

But the picture pauses, of course, at the beginning of 
my text, of which the sequel is quite as wonderful as its 
first part. “I will come in to him, and sup with him, 
and he with Me.” What can surpass such words as 
these? I venture to take this great text, and ask 
you to look with me at the three things that lie in it: 


92 CHRIST AT THE DOOR. 


the suppliant for admission; the door cpened; the 
entrance and the feast. 

I.—Think, then, first of all, of that Suppliant for 
admission. 

I suppose that the briefest explanation of my text 
is sufficient. Who knocks? The exalted Christ. 
What is the door? The closed heart of man. What 
does He desire? Entrance. What are His knock- 
ings and His voice? All providences; all monitions 
of His Spirit in man’s spirit and conscience; the 
direct invitations cf His written cr spoken word ; in 
brief, whatsoever sways our hearts to yield to Him 
and enthrone Him. This is the meaning, in the 
fewest possible werds cf the great utterance of my 
text. 

Here is a revelation of a universal truth. applying 
to every man and woman on the face of the earth; 
but more especially and manifestly to those of us who 
live within the scund cf Christ's Gospel, and of the 
written revelaticns of His grace. True, my text was 
originally spoken in reference to the unworthy 
members of a little church of early believers in Asia 
Minor, but it passes far beyond the limits of the 
lukewarm Laodiceans to whom it was addressed. 
And the “any man” which follows is wide enough to 
warrant us in stretching cut the representation as far 
as the bounds of humanity extend, and in believing 
that, wherever there is a close heart there is a knock- 
ing Christ, and that all men are lightened by that 
Light which came into the world. 

Upon that 1 do not need to dwell, but I desire to 
enforce the individual bearing of the general truth 
upon our own consciences. and to come to each with 


CHRIST AT THE DOOR. 93 


this message—the saying is true about thee, and at 
the door of thy heart Jesus Christ stands, and there 
His gentle, mighty hand is laid, and on it the flashes 
of His light shine, and through the chinks of the 
unopened door of thy heart comes the beseeching 
voice, “Open! Open unto Me.” A strange reversal 
of the attitudes of the great and of the lowly, of the 
giver and of the receiver, of the Divine and of the 
human! Christ once said, “ Knock, and it shall be 
opened unto you.” But He has taken the suppliant’s 
place, and, standing by the side of each of us, He 
beseeches us that we let Him bless us, and enter in 
for our rest. 

So, then, there is here a revelation, not only of a 
universal truth, but a most tender and pathetic 
disclosure of Christ’s yearning love to each of us. 
What do you call that emotion which, more than 
anything else, desires that a heart should open and let 
it enter? We call it love when we find it in one 
another. Surely it bears the same name when it is 
sublimed into all but infinitude, and yet is as in- 
dividualizing and specific as it is great and universal, 
as it is found in Jesus Christ. If it be true that He 
wants me, if it be true that in that great heart of His 
there are a thought and a wish about His relation to 
me, and mine to Him, then, then, each of us is 
grasped by a love that is like our human love, only 
perfected and purified from all its weaknesses. 

Now we sometimes feel, I am afraid, as if all that 
talk about the love which Jesus Christ has to each of 
us was scarcely a prose fact. There is a woeful lack 
of belief among us in the things that we profess to 
believe most. You are all ready to admit, when I 


94 CHRIST AT THE DOOR. 


preach it, that it is true that Jesus Christ loves us. 
Have you ever tried to realize it, and lay it upon your 
hearts, that the sweetness and astoundingness of it 
may soak into you, and change your whole being? 
Oh ! listen, not to my poor, rough notes, but to His 
infinitely sweet and tender melody of voice, when He 
says to you, as if your eyes needed to be opened to 
perceive it, “ Behold / I stand at the door and knock.” 
There is a revelation in the words, dear friends, of 
an infinite long-suffering and patience. The door has » 
long been fastened; you and I have, like some lazy 
servant, thought that, if we did not answer the knock, 
the Knocker would go away when He was weary. 
But we have miscalculated the elasticity and the 
unfailingness of that patient Christ’s love. Rejected 
- He abides; spurned He returns. There are mén and 
women in this chapel now who, all their lives long, 
have known that Jesus Christ coveted their love, and 
yearned for a place in their hearts, and have steeled 
themselves against the knowledge, or frittered it 
away by worldliness, or darkened it by sensuality and 
sin. And here they are again once more brought 
into the presence of that rejected, patient, wooing 
Lord, who courts them for their souls as if they were, 
which indeed they are, too precious to be lost, as long 
as there is a ghost of a chance that they may still 
listen to His voice. The patient Christ’s wonderful- 
ness of long-suffering may well bow us all in thank- 
fulness and in penitence. How often has He tapped 
or thundered at the door of your heart, dear friends, 
_ and how often have you neglected to open? Is it not 
of the Lord’s mercies that the rejected or neglected 
love is offered you once more, and the voice, so long 


= 


CHRIST AT THE DOOR. 95 


deadened and deafened to your ears by the rush of 
passion, and the hurry of business, and the whispers 
of self, yet again appeals to you, as it does even 
through my poor translation of it. 

And then, still further, in that thought of the sup- 
pliant waiting for admission, there is the explanation 
for us all of a great many misunderstood facts in our 
experience. That sorrow that darkened your days 
and made your heart bleed, what was it but Christ’s 
hand on the door? Those blessings which pour into 
your life day by day “beseech you, by the mercies of 
God, that ye yield yourselves living sacrifices” That 
unrest which dogs the steps of every man who has not 
found rest in Christ, what is it but the application of 
His hand to the obstinately closed door? The stings 
of conscience, the movements of the Spirit, the definite 
proclamation of His Word, even by such lips as mine, 
what are they all except His appeals to us? And 
this is the deepest meaning of joys and sorrows, of 
gifts and losses of fulfilled and disappointed hopes. 
This is the meaning of the yearning of Christless 
hearts, of the various experiences which come to us 
all “Behold! I stand at the door and knock.” If 
we understood better that all life is guided by Christ, 
and that Christ’s guidance of life is guided by His 
desire that He should find a place in our hearts, we 
should less frequently wonder at sorrows, and should 
better understand our blessings. 

The boy Samuel, lying sleeping before the light in 
the inner sanctuary, heard the voice of God, and 
thought it was only the grey-bearded priest that spoke. 
We often make the same mistake, and confound the 
utterances of Christ Himself with the speech of men, 


96 CHRIST AT THE DOOR. 


Recognize who it is that pleads with you; and do not 
fancy that when Christ speaks it is Eli that is calling; 
but say, “Speak, Lord! for Thy servant heareth.” 
“ Lift up your heads, O ye gates, even lift them up, ye 
everlasting doors, and the King of Glory shall come 
in.” 

Il.—And that leads me, secondly, to ask you to 
look at the door opened. 

I need not enlarge upon what I have already sug- 
gested, the universality of the wide promise here—“ If 
any man open the door”; but what I wish rather to 
notice is that, according to this representation, “the 
door” has no handle outside, and is so hinged that it 
opens from within outwards. Which, being taken out 
of metaphor and put into fact, means this, you are 
the only being that can open the door for Christ to 
come in. The whole responsibility, brother, of accept- 
ing or rejecting God’s gracious Word, which comes to 
us all in good faith, lies with yourself. 

Iam not going to plunge into theological puzzles, 
but I appeal to consciousness. You know as well as 
I do—better a great deal, for it is yourself that is in 
question—that at each time when your heart and 
conscience have been brought in contact with the 
offer of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ, if you 
had liked you could have opened the door, and wel- 
comed His entrance, And you know that nobody 
and nothing kept it fast except only yourselves. “Ye 
will not come to Me,” said Christ, “that ye might 
have life.” Men, indeed, do pile up such mountains 
of rubbish against the door that it cannot be opened, 
but it was they who put them there; and they are 
responsible if the hinges are so rysty that they will 


CHRIST AT THE DOOR. 97 


not move, or the doorway is so clogged that there is 
no room for it to open. Jesus Christ knocks, but 
Jesus Christ cannot break the door open. It lies in 
your hands to decide whether you will take or 
whether you will reject that which He brings. 

The door is closed, and unless there be a definite 
act on your parts it will not be opened and He will 
not enter. So we come to this, that to do nothing is 
to keep your Saviour outside; and that is the way in 
which most men that miss Him do miss Him. 

I suppose there are very few of us who have ever 
been conscious of an act of resistance, by which, if I 
might adhere to the metaphor, we have laid hold of 
the door on the inside, and held it tight lest it should 
be opened. But, I fear me, there are many of my 
present hearers who have sat in the inner chamber, 
and heard the gracious hand on the outer panel, and 
have kept their hands folded and their feet still, and 
done nothing. Ah! brethren, to do nothing is to do 
the most dreadful of things, for it is to keep the door 
shut in the face of Christ. No passionate antagonism 
is needed, no vehement rejection, no intellectual denial 
- of His truth and His promises. If you want to ruin 
yourselves, you have simply to do nothing! All the 
dismal consequences will necessarily follow, 

“ Well,” you say, “but you are talking metaphors ; 
let us come to plain facts. What do you wish me to 
do?” I wish you to listen to the message of an 
infinitely loving Christ who died on the cross to bear 
the sins of the whole world, including you and me; 
and who now lives, pleading with each of us from 
heaven that we will take by simple faith, and keep 
by holy obedience, the gift of eternal life which He 

7 


98 CHRIST AT THE DOOR. 


offers, and which He alone can give. The condition 
of His entrance is simple trust in Him, as the Saviour 
of my soul. That is opening the door, and if you will 
do that, then, just as when you open the shutters, in 
comes the sunshine ; just as when men lift the sluice, 
in flows the crystal stream into the slimy, empty lock, 
so—I was going to say by gravitation, rather by the 
diffusive impulse that belongs to Light, which is 
Christ—He will enter in, wherever He is not shut out 
by unbelief and aversion of will 

III.—And so that brings me to my last point—viz., 
the entrance and the feast. . 

My text is a metaphor, but the declaration that ‘if 
any man open the door” Jesus Christ - will come 
in to him,” is not a metaphor, but is the very heart 
and centre of the Gospel. “I will come in to him,” 
dwell in him, be really incorporated in his being or 
inspirited, if I may so say, in his spirit. Now you 
may think that that is far too recondite and lofty a 
thought to be easily grasped by ordinary people, but 
its very loftiness should recommend it to us_ I, for 
my part, believe that there is no more literal fact in 
the whole world than the actual dwelling of Jesus 
Christ, the Son of God who is in heaven, in the 
spirits of the people that love Him and trust Him, 
And this is one great part of the Gospel that I have 
to preach to you, that into our emptiness He will 
come with His fulness; that into our sinfulness He 
will come with His righteousness; that into our 
death He will come with His triumphant and 
immortal life; and, He being in us and we in Him, we 
shall be full and pure and live for ever, and be blessed 
with the blessedness of Jesus. So remember that 


CHRIST AT THE DOOR, 99 


imbedded in the midst of the wonderful metaphor of 
my text lies the fact which is the very centre of the 
Gospel hope, the dwelling of Jesus Christ in the 
hearts even of poor sinful creatures like us. 

But it comes into view here only as the basis of 
the subsequent promises, and on these I can only 
touch very briefly, “I will come in to him and sup 
with him, and he with Me.” That speaks to us 
in lovely, sympathetic language, of a close, familiar, 
happy communication between Christ and my poor 
self, which shall make all life as a feast in company 
with Him. We remember who is the mouthpiece of 
Jesus Christ here. It is the disciple who knew most 
of what quietness of blessedness and serenity of 
adoring communion there were in leaning on Christ’s 
breast at supper, casting back his head en that loving 
bosom ; looking into those deep, sad eyes, and asking 
questions which were sure of answer. And John, as 
he wrote down the words “I will sup with him, and 
he with Me,” perhaps remembered that upper room 
where, amidst all the bitter herbs, there were. such 
strange joy and tranquillity. But whether he did or 
no, may we not take the picture as suggesting to us 
the possibilities of loving fellowship, of quiet repose, 
of absolute satisfaction of all desires and needs, which 
will be ours, if we open the door of our hearts by 
faith, and let Jesus Christ come in? 

But, note, when He does come He comes as guest. 
“JT will sup with him.” “He shall have the honour 
of providing that of which I partake.” Just as upon 
earth He said to the Samaritan woman, “Give Me to 
drink,” or sat at the table, at the modest village feast 
in Bethany, in honour of the miracle of a man raised 

q* 


100 CHRIST AT THE DOOR. 


— 


from the dead, and smiled approval of Martha serving, 
as of Lazarus sitting at table, and of Mary anoint- 
ing Him, so the humble viands, the poor man’s fare 
that our resources enable us to lay upon His table, 
are never too small or poor for Him to delight in. 
This King feasts in the neatherd’s cottage, and He 
will even condescend to turn the cakes. “I will sup 
with him.” We cannot bring anything so coarse, so 
poor, so unworthy, if a drop or two of love has been 
sprinkled over it, but that it will be well-pleasing in 
His sight, and He Himself will partake thereof. 
“He has gone to be a guest with a man that is a 
sinner.” 

But more than that, where He is welcomed as 
guest, He assumes the place of host. “I will sup 
with him, and he with Me.’ You remember how, 
after the Resurrection, when the two disciples, moved 
to hospitality, implored the unknown stranger to 
come in and partake of their humble fare, He yielded 
to their importunity, and, when they were in the 
guest-chamber, took His place at the head of the 
table, and blessed the bread and gave it to them. 
Your remember how, in the beginning of His miracles, 
He manifested forth His glory in this, that, invited as 
a common guest to the rustic wedding, He replenished 
the failing wine. And so, wherever a poor man opens 
his heart and says, “Come in, and I will give Thee 
my best,” Jesus Christ comes in, and gives the man 
His best, that the man may render it back to Him. 
He owes nothing to any man, He accepts the poorest 
from each, and He gives the richest to each. He is 
Guest and Host, and what He accepts from us is what 
He has first given to us. 


CHRIST AT THE DOOR. 101 


——~- 


The promisé of my text is fulfilled immediately 
when the door of the heart is opened, but it shadows 
and prophesies a nobler fulfilment in the heavens. 
Here and now Christ and we may sit together, but 
the feast will be like the Passover, eaten with loins 
girt and staves in hand, and the Red Sea and wilder- 
ness waiting to be trodden. But there comes a per- 
fecter form of the communion, which finds its parallel 
in that wonderful scene when the weary fishers, all of 
whose success had depended on their obedience to the 
Master’s direction, discerned at last, through the grey | 
of the morning, who it was that stood upon the shore, 
and, struggling to His side, saw there “a fire of coals, 
and fish laid thereon, and bread,” to which they were 
bidden to add their modest contribution in the fish 
that they had caught; and, the meal being thus 
prepared partly by His hand and partly by theirs, 
enabled and filled by Him, His voice says, “Come 
and dine.” So, brethren, Christ at the last will bring 
His servants to His table in His Kingdom, and there 
their works shall follow them ; and He and they shall 
sit together forever, and for ever “ rejoice in the fat- 
ness of Thy house, even of Thy holy temple.” 

I beseech you, listen not to my poor voice, but to 
His that speaks through it, and when He knocks do 
you open, and Christ Himself shall come in. “Ifa 
man love Me he will keep My commandments, and 
My Father will love him, and We will come and make 
Our aboile with him!” 


at 2S 


XI. 


Ercuses not Reasons. 


“THEY all with one consent began to make excuse. "—LUKE xiv. 18 


OR S/ 
) ZZ y 
SH pe S \ 


Pharisee’s house It was a strange 
place for Him—and His words at the 
table were also strange. For He first 
: rebuked the guests. and then the host; 
telling the former to take the lower rooms and 
bidding the latter widen his hospitality to those that 
could not recompense him. It was a sharp saying; 
and one of the other guests turned the edge of it by 
laying hold of our Lord’s final words, “Thou shalt 
be recompensed at the resurrection of the just,” and 
saying, no doubt in a pious tone and with a devout 
shake of the head, “ Blessed is he that shall eat bread 
in the Kingdom of God.” It was a very proper thing 
to say, but there was a ring of conventional, common- 
place piety about it which struck unpleasantly on 
Christ’s ear. He answers the speaker with that strange 
story of the great feast that nobody would come 
to, as if He had said, “You pretend to think that 
it is a blessed thing to eat bread in the Kingdom of 
God. Why! You will not eat the bread when it is 
offered to you.” 


EXCUSES NOT REASONS. - 108 


T daresay you all know enough of the parable to 
make it unnecessary for me to go over it. A great 
feast is prepared ; invitations, more or less general, are 
sent out at first, everything is ready; and, behold, 
there is a table, and nobody to sit at it. A strange 
experience for a hospitable man! And so he sends 
his servants to beat up the unwilling guests, and, one 
after another, with more or less politeness, refuses to 
come. 

I need not follow the story further; in the latter 
part of the parable-our Lord shadows the transference 
of the blessings of the Kingdom to the Gentiles, out- 
casts as the Jews thought them, skulking in the 
edges and tramping on the highways. In the first 
part He foreshadows the failure of His own preaching 
amongst His own people. But Jews and Englishmen 
are very much alike. The way in which these in- 
vited guests treated the invitation to this feast is 
being repeated, day by day, by thousands of men 
round us; and by some within these walls now. 
*“ They all, with one consent, began to make excuse.” 

I.—The first thing that I would desire you to notice 
is the strangely unanimous refusal. 

The guests’ conduct in the story is such as life and 
reality would afford no example of. No set of people, 
asked to a great banquet, would behave as these 
people in the parable do. Then, is the introduction 
of such an unnatural trait as this a fault in the con- 
struction of the narrative? No! Rather it is a 
beauty, for the very point of the story is the utter 
unnaturalness of the conduct described, and the con- 
trast that is presented between the way in which men 
regard the lower blessings which these people are 


104 EXCUSES NOT REASONS. 


represented as turning from, and in which they regard 
the loftier blessings that are offered. Nobody would 
turn his back upon such a banquet if he had the 
chance of going to it. What, then, shall we say of 
those who, by platoons and regiments, turn their backs 
upon this higher offer? The very preposterous un- 
naturalness of the conduct, if the parable were a true 
story, points to the deep meaning that lies behind it : 
that in that higher region the unnatural is the uni- 
versal, or all but universal. 

And, indeed, it is so. One would almost venture to 
say that there is a kind of law according to which the 
more valuable a thing is the less men care to have it; 
or, if you like to put it into more scientific language, 
the attraction of an object is in the inverse ratio to 
its worth. Small things, transitory things, material 
things, everybody grasps at; and the number of 
graspers steadily decreases as you go up the scale in 
preciousness until, when you reach the highest of all, 
there are the fewest that want them. Is there anything 
lower than good that merely gratifies the body? Is 
there anything that the most of men want more? Are 
there many things lower in the scale than money? 
Are there many things that pull more strongly? Is 
not truth better than wealth ? Are there more pursuers 
of it than there are of the latter? For one man that 
is eager to know, and counts his life well spent in 
following knowledge— 

“ Like a sinking star, 
Beyond the furthest bounds of human thought,” 
there are a hundred that think it rightly expended 
in the pursuit after the wealth that perishes. Is not 
goodness higher than truth, and are not the men that 


—_— 7 


EXCUSES NOT REASONS. 105 


are content to devote themselves to becoming wise 
more numerous than those that are content to devote 
themselves to becoming pure? And, topmost of all, 
is there anything to be compared with the gifts that 
are held out to us in that great Saviour and in His 
message? And is there anything that the mass of 
men pass by with more unanimous refusal than the 
offered feast that the great King of humanity has pro- 
vided for His subjects? What is offered for each ot 
us, pressed upon us, in the gift of Jesus Christ ? Help, 
guidance, companionship, restfulness of heart, power 
of obedience, victory over self, control of passions, 
supremacy over circumstances, tranquillity deep and 
genuine, death abolished, heaven opened, measureless 
hopes following upon perfect fruition, here and here- 
after. These things are all gathered into, and their 
various sparkles absorbed in, the one steady light 
of that- one great encyclopzdiacal word—salvation. 
These gifts are going begging, lying at our doors, 
offered to every one of us, pressed upon all, on the 
simple condition of taking Christ for Saviour and 
King. And what do we do with them? “They all, 
with one consent, began to make excuses.” 

One hears of barbarous people who have no use for 
the gold that abounds in their country, and do not 
think it half as valuable as-glass beads, That is how 
men estimate the true and trumpery treasures which 
Christ and the world offer. I declare it seems to me 
that, calmly looking at men’s nature, and their dura- 
tion, and then thinking of the aims of the most of 
them, we should not be very far wrong if we said 
that an epidemic of insanity sits upon the world. For 
surely to turn away from gold and to hug glass 


106 EXCUSES NOT REASONS. 


beads is very little short of madness “This their 
way is their folly, and their posterity approve their 
sayings.” 

And now notice that this refusal may be, and often 
in fact is, accompanied with lip recognition of the 
preciousness of the neglected things. That Pharisee 
who put up the pillow of his pious sentiment—a piece 
of cant, because he did not feel what he was saying— 
to deaden the cannon-ball of Christ’s Word, is only a 
pattern of a good many of us, who think that to say, 
“Blessed is he that eateth bread in the Kingdom of 
God,” with the proper unctuous roll of the voice, is 
pretty nearly as good as to take the bread that is 
offered to us. There are no mere difficult people to 
get at than the people of whom 1 am sure 1 have 
some specimens in these pews now, who bow their 
heads in assent to the word of the Gospel. and by 
bowing them escape its impact, and let it whistle 
harmlessly over. You that believe every word that I 
or my brethren preach, and never dream of letting 
it affect your conduct—if there be degrees in that 
lunatic asylum of the world, surely you are candi- 
dates for the highest place. 

1I.—Now, secondly, notice the flimsy excuses. 

“They all, with one consent, began to make excuse,” 
I do not suppose that they had laid their heads to- 
gether, or that our Lord intends us to suppose that 
there was a conspiracy and concert of refusal, but only 
that without any previous consultation, all had the 
same sentiments, and offered substantially the same 
answer. All the reasons that are given come to one and 
the same thing—viz., occupation with present interests, 
duties, possessions, or affections, There are differences 


il a 


~ 


EXCUSES NOT REASONS. oe lOr 


in the excuses which are not only helps to the vivid- 
ness of the narrative, but also express differences in the 
speakers. One man is a shade politer than the others. 
He puts his refusal on the ground of necessity. He 
“must,” and so he courteously prays that he may be 
held excused. The second one is not quite so polite; 
but still there is a touch of courtesy about him too, 
He does not pretend necessity as his friend had done, 
but he simply says, “I am going”; and that is not 
quite so courteous as the former, but still he begs to 
be excused. The last man thinks that he has such 
an undeniable reason that he may be as brusque as 
he likes, and so he says, “I have married a wife, and 
therefore I cannot come, and I do not make any 
apologies.” So, with varying degrees of apparent 
recognition of the claim of host and feast, the ground 
of refusal is set forth as possessions in two cases, and 
as affections in the third ; and these so fill the men’s 
hearts and minds that they have no time to attend to 
the call that summons them to the feast. 

Now it is obvious to note that the alleged necessity 
in one of these excuses was no necessity at all. Who 
made the “must”? The man himself. The field 
would not run away though he waited till to-morrow. 
The bargain was finished, for he had bought it. There 
was no necessity for his going, and the next day 
would have done quite as well as to-day; so the 
“must” was entirely in his own mind. That is to 
Say, a great many of us mask inclinations under the 
garb of imperative duties and say, “ We are so pressed 
by nec ssary obligations and engagements that we 
really have not any time to attend to these higher 
questions which you are trying to press upon us.” 


108 EXCUSES NOT KEASONS. 


You remember the old story. “I must live,” said the 
thief. “1 do not see the necessity,” said the judge. 
A man says, “I must be in Mosley Street to-morrow 
morning at half-past eight. How can I think about 
religion?” Well, if you really must, you can think 
about it. But if you are only juggling and deceiving 
yourself with inclinations that sham to be necessities, 
the sooner the veil is off, and you understand where- 
abouts you are, and what is your true position in 
reference to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the better. 

But, then, let me, only in a word, remind you that 
the other excuse is a very operative one. “I have 
married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.” There 
are some of us around whom the strong grasp 
of earthly affections is flung so embracingly and 
sweetly that we cannot, as we think, turn our loves 
upward and fix them upon God. Fathers and 
mothers, husbands and wives, parents and children! 
remember Christ’s deep words, “A man’s foes shall be 
they of his own household”; and be sure that the 
prediction is fulfilled many a time, by the hindrances 
of their love even more than by the opposition of 
their hatred. 

All these excuses refer to legitimate things. It is 
perfectly right that a man should go and see after 
his field, perfectly right that the ten bullocks should 
be harnessed and tried, perfectly right that the sweet- 
ness of wedded love should be tasted and drank— 
perfectly wrong that any of them should be put asa 
reason for not accepting Christ’s offer. Let us take 
the lesson that legitimate business, and lawful and | 
pure affections, may ruin a soul, and may constitute 
the hindrance that blocks its road to God. 


EXCUSES NOT REASONS. 10 


Brethren, I said that these were flimsy excuses. I 
shall have to explain what I mean by that in a 
moment. As excuses they are flimsy; but as reasons 
which actually operate with hundreds of people, pre- 
venting them from being Christians, they are not 
flimsy; they are most solid and real. Our Lord does 
not mean them as exhaustive. There are a great 
many other grounds upon which different types of 
character turn away from the offered blessings of the 
Gospel, which do not come within view in the parable. 
But although not exhaustive they are widely opera- 
tive. I wonder how many men and women there 
are here now, of whom it is true that they are so 
busy with their daily occupations that they have 
not time to be religious, and of how many men, 
and perhaps more especially women, in my audience 
it is true that their hearts are so ensnared with 
loves that belong to earth—beautiful and potentially 
sacred and elevating as these are—that they have 
not time to turn themselves to the one eternal 
Lover of all their souls. Let me beseech you, dear 
friends — and you especially who are strangers to 
this place and to my voice—to do what I cannot, 
‘and would not if I could, lay these thoughts on your 
own hearts, and ask yourselves, “Is it 1?” 

And then, before I pass from this point of my 
discourse, remember that the contrariety between 
these duties and the acceptance of the offered feast 
existed only in the imagination of the men who made 
them excuses. There is no reason why you should not 
go to the feast, and see after your field. There is no 
reason why you should not love your wife, and go to 
the feast. God’s summons comes into collision with 


110 EXCUSES NOT REASONS. 


many wishes, but with no duties or legitimate occupa- 
tions. The more a man accepts and lives upon the 
good that Jesus Christ spreads before him, the more 
fit will’he be for all his work, and for all his enjoy- 
ments. The field will be better tilled, the bullocks 
will be better driven, the wife will be more wisely, 
tenderly, and sacredly loved, if in your hearts Christ 
is enthroned, and whatsoever you do you do as for 
Him. It is only the excessive and abusive possession 
of His gifts and absorption in our duties and relations 
that turns them into impediments in the path of our 
Christian life. And the flimsiness of the excuse is 
manifest by the fact that the contrariety is self-created, 

I]I.—Lastly, note the real reason. 

I have said that as pretexts the three explanations 
were unsatisfactory. When a man pleads a previous 
engagement as a reason for not accepting an invita- 
tion, nine times out of ten it is a polite way of 
saying, “1 do not want to go.” It was so in this case. 
How all these absolute impossibilities, which made it 
perfectly out of the question that the three recreants 
should sit down at the table, would have melted into 
thin air if, by any chance, there had come into their 
minds a wish to be there! They would have found 
means to look after the field and the cattle and the 
home, and to be in their places notwithstanding, if 
they had wished. The real reason that underlies 
men’s turning away from Christ's offer is, as I said in 
the beginning of my remarks, that they do not care 
to have it. They have no inclinations and no tastes 
for the higher and purer blessings 

Brother, do not let us lose ourselves in generalities, 
I am talking about you, and about the set of your 


EXCUSES NOT REASONS. 111 


inclinations and tastes. And I want you to ask 
yourself whether it is not a fact that some of you ~ 
like oxen better than God; whether it is not a fact 
that if the two were there before you, you would 
rather have a good fertile field made over to you than 
_ have the food that is spread upon that table. 

Well, then, what is the cause of the perverted 
inclination? Why is it that when Christ says, 
“Child, come to Me, and I will give thee pardon, 
peace, purity, power, hope, heaven, Myself,” there is 
no responsive desire kindled in the heart? Why do 
I not want God? Why do I not care for Jesus 
Christ? Why do the blessings about which preachers 
are perpetuaily talking seem to me so shadowy, so 
remcte from anything that I need, so ill-fitting to 
anything that I desire? There must be something 
very deeply wrong. This is what is wrong—your 
heart has shaken itself loose from dependence upon 
Ged, and you have no such love as you ought to have for 
Him. You prefer to stand alone. The prodigal son, 
having gone away into the far country, likes the 
swines husks better than the bread in his father’s 
house. and it is only when the supply of the latter 
coarse dainty gives out that the purer taste becomes 
strong. Strange, is it not? but yet it is true. 

Now, there are one or two things that I want to 
say about this indifference, resulting from pre- 
occupation and from alienation, and which hides its 
ugliness behind all manner of flimsy excuses, One 
is that the reason itself is utterly unreasonable. I 
have said the true reason is indifference. Can 
anybody put into words, which do not betray the 
absurdity of the position, the conduct of the man who 


112 EXCUSES NOT REASONS. 


says, “I do not want God; give me five yoke of oxen, 
That is the real good, and I will stick by that?” 
There is one mystery in the world, and if it were 
solved everything would be solved ; and that mystery 
is that men turn away from God and cleave to 
earth. No account can be given of sin. No account 
can be given of man’s preference for the lesser and the 
lower, and neglect of the greater and the higher, except 
to say it is utterly inexplicable and unreasonable. 

I need not say that such indifference is shameful 
ingratitude to the yearning love which provides, and 
the infinite sacrifice by which was provided, this 
great feast to which we are asked. It took Christ’s 
pains, and tears, and blood to prepare that feast. 
And He looks to us, and says to us, “Come and drink 
of the wine which I have mingled, and eat of the 
bread which I have provided at such a cost.” There 
are monsters of ingratitude, but there are none more 
miraculously monstrous than the men who look, as 
some of us are doing, untouched on Christ's sacrifice, 
and listen unmoved to Christ’s pleadings. 

The excuses will disappear one day. We can trick 
our consciences; we can put off the messengers; we 
cannot take in the Host. All the thin curtains that 
we weave to veil the naked ugliness of our unwil- 
lingness to accept Christ will be burnt up. And I 
pray you to ask yourselves, “ What shall I say when 
He comes and asks me, ‘Why was thy place empty 
at My table?’” “And he was speechless.” Do not, 
dear brethren, refuse that gift, lest you bring upon 
yourselves the terrible and righteous wrath of the 
Host whose invitation you are slighting, and at whose 
table you are refusing to sit. 


XIL 
The Great Proclamation.* 


“Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that 
hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine 
and milk without money and without price.’—Isa, lv. 1. 


HE meaning of the word preach is 
| “proclaim like a herald”; or, what is 
perhaps more familiar to most of us, 
SAK like a town-crier; with a loud voice, 
== clearly and plainly delivering his 


message. 
Now, there are other notions of a sermon than that; 
and there is other work which ministers have to do, 
of an educational kind. But my business now 
is to preach; and we have ventured to ask others 
than the members of our own congregation to come 
and join us; and I should be ashamed of my- 
self, and have good reason to be so, if I had asked 
you to come to hear me talk, or to entertain you with 
more or less eloquent and thoughtful discourses. 
There is a time for everything; and what this is the 
time for is to ring out like a bellman the message 
which I believe God has given me for you. It 
cannot but suffer in passing through human lips; 
but I pray that my poor words may not be all 
* Preached at an Open Service. 


11¢ THE GREAT PROCLAMATION. 


unworthy of its stringency, and of the greatness of its 
blessing. My text is God’s proclamation, and all that 
the best of us can do is but to reiterate that, more 
feebly, alas! but still earnestly. 

Suppose there was an advertisement in to-morrow 
morning’s Manchester papers that anybody that liked 
to go to a certain place might get a fortune for going, 
what a queue of waiting suppliants there would be at 
the door! Here is God's greatest gift going a-beg- 
ging; and there are people now in this chapel who 
listen to my text with only the thought, “ Oh. the old 
threadbare story is what we have been asked to come 
and hear!” Brethren. have you taken the offer? If 
not, it needs to be pressed upon you once more 

So my purpose now is a very simple one I 
wish, as a brother to a brother, to put before you 
these three things: to whom the offer is made, what 
it consists of; and how it may be ours 

I.—To whom this offer is made. 

It is to every one thirsty and penniless That isa 
melancholy combination, to be needing something 
infinitely, and to have not a farthing to get it with. 
But that is the condition in which we all stand. in 
regard of the highest and best things For this 
invitation of my text is as universal as if it had 
stopped with its third word “Ho, every one” would 
have been no broader than is the offer as it stands 
For the characteristics named are those which belong, 
necessarily and universally, to human experience. If 
my text had said, “Ho, every one that breathes 
human breath,” it would not have more completely 
covered the whole race, and enfolded thee and me, 
and all our brethren, in the amplitude of its promise, 


wubrs. 


THE GREAT PROCLAMATION. 115 


than it does when it sets up as the sole qualifications, 
thirst and penury—that we infinitely need and that 
we are absolutely unable to acquire the blessings that 
it offers. 

“Every one that thirsteth.” That means desire. 
Yes; but it means need also. And what is every man 
but a great bundle of yearnings and necessities? 
None of us carry within ourselves that which sufiices 
for ourselves. We are all dependent upon external 
things for being and for well-being. 

There are thirsts which infallibly point to their true 
objects. Ifa man is hungry he knows that it is food 
that he wants. And just as the necessities of the 
animal life are incapable of being misunderstood, and 
the objects which will satisfy them incapable of being . 
confused or mistaken, so there are. other nobler 
thirsts, which, in like manner, work automatically 
and point to the thing that they need. We have 
social instincts; we need love; we need friendship ; 
we need somebody to lean upon; we thirst for some 
heart to rest our heads upon, for hands to clasp 
ours; and we know where the creatures and the 
objects are that will satisfy these desires. And there 
are the higher thirsts of the spirit, that “follows 
knowledge, like a sinking star, beyond the furthest 
bounds of human thought”; and a man knows where 
and how to gratify the impulse that drives him to 
seek after some forms of knowledge and wisdom. 

But besides all these, besides sense, besides affection, 
besides emotions, besides the intellectual spur of 
which we are all more or less conscious, there come 
in a whole set of other thirsts that do not in them- 


selves carry the intimation of the place where they 
8* 


116 THE GREAT PROCLAMATION. 


can be slaked. And so you get men restless, as some 
of you are; always dissatisfied, as some of you are; 
feeling that there is something needed, yet not know- 
ing what, as some of you are. You remember the 
old story in the “Arabian Nights,” of the man 
who had a grand palace, and lived in it quite con- 
tentedly, until somebody told him that it needed a 
roc’s egg hanging from the roof to make it complete. 
and he did not know where to get that, and was 
miserable accordingly. We build our houses, we 
fancy that we are satisfied; and then there comes the- 
stinging thought that it is not all complete yet, and 
we go groping, groping in the dark, to find out what 
itis. Shipwrecked sailors sometimes, in their despera- 
tion, drink salt water, and that makes them thirstier 
than ever, and brings on madness and death. Some 
publicans drug the vile liquors that they sell, so that 
they increase thirst. We may makeno mistake about 
how to satisfy the desires of sense or of earthly 
affections ; we may be quite certain that money 
answereth all things, and that it is good to get on 
in business in Manchester; or may have found a 
pure and enduring satisfaction in study and in books 
—yet there are thirsts that some of us know not 
where to satisfy; and so we have parched lips and 
swollen tongues and raging desires that earth can 
give nothing to fill. 

My brother, do you know what it is that you want ? 
It is God, nothing else, nothing less. “My soul 
thirsteth for God, for the living God.” The man that 
knows what it is of which he is in such sore need is 
blessed. The man who only feels dimly that he needs 
something, and does not know that it is God whom he 


THE GREAT PROCLAMATION. 1117 


does need, is condemned to wander in a dry and 
thirsty land, where no water is, and where his heart 
gapes, parched and cracked like the soil upon which 
he treads. Understand your thirst. Interpret your 
desires aright. Open your eyes to your need; and 
be sure of this, that mountains of money and the 
clearest insight into intellectual problems, and fame, 
and love, and wives, and children, and happy 
homes, and abundance of all things that you can 
desire, will leave a central aching emptiness that 
nothing and no person but God can ever fill. Oh, 
that we all knew what these yearnings of our hearts 
mean! 

Aye! but there are dormant thirsts too. It is no 
proof of superiority that a savage has fewer wants 
than we have, for want is the open mouth into which 
supply comes. And you all have deep in your 
nature desires which will for ever keep you from 
being blessed or at rest unless they are awakened 
and settled, though these desires are all uncon- 
scious. The business of us preachers is, very largely, 
to get the people who will listen to us to recog- 
nize the fact that they do want things which they 
do not wish; and that, for the perfection of their 
natures, the cherishing of noble longings and thirstings 
is needful, and that to be without this sense of need 
is to be without one of the loftiest prerogatives of 
humanity. 

Some of you do not want forgiveness. Many of you 
would much rather not have holiness. You do not 
want God. The promises of the Gospel go clean over 
your heads, and are as impotent to influence you as 
is the wind whistling through a keyhole, because you 


118 THE GREAT PROCLAMATION. 


have never been aware of the wants to which these 
promises correspond, and do not understand what itis 
that you truly require. ‘ 
And yet there are no desires so dormant but that 
their being ungratified makes a man restless. You 
do not want forgiveness, but you will never be happy 
ill you get it. You do not want to be good and 
true and holy men, but you will never be blessed 
‘till you are. You do not want God, some of you, 
but you will be restless till you find Him. You 
fancy you want heaven when you are dead; you 
do not want it when you are living. But until your 
earthly life is like the life of Jesus Christ in heaven 
even whilst you are on earth you will never be at rst 
You are thirsty enough after these things to be ill at 
ease without them when you bethink yourselves, and 
pass out of the region of mere mechanical and 
habitual existence. Until you get these things 
that you do not desire, be sure of this, you will be 
tortured with vain unrest, and will find that the 
satisfactions which you do seek turn to ashes in your 
mouth. “Bread of deceit,” says the Book, “is sweet 
to aman.” The writer meant by that that there were 
people who found it pleasant to tell profitable lies, 
But we might widen the meaning, and say that all 
these lower satisfactions, apart from the loftier ones 
of forgiveness, acceptance, reconciliation with God, 
the conscious possession of Him, a well-grounded 
hope of immortality, the power to live a noble life 
and to look forward to a glorious heaven, are deceitful 
bread, which promises nourishment and does not give 
it, but breaks the teeth that try to masticate it; “it 
turneth to gravel.” 


THE GREAT PROCLAMATION. pence 1 


“ Ho, every one that thirsteth.” That designation 
includes us all. “And he that hath no money.” 
Who has any? Notice that the persons repre- 
sented in our text as penniless are, in the next 
verse, remonstrated with for spending “money.” 
So then the penniless man had some pence away 
in some corner of his pocket which he could 
spend. He had the money that would buy shams, 
“that which is not bread” but a stone though 
it looks like a loaf, but he had no money for the true 
thing. Which being translated out of parable into 
fact, is simply this, that our efforts may and do 
win for us the lower satisfactions which meet our 
transitory and superficial necessities, but that no 
effort of ours can secure for us the loftier blessings 
which slake the diviner thirsts of immortal souls. A 
man lands in a far country with English shillings in 
his pocket, but he finds that no coins go there but” 
thalers, or francs, or dollars, or the like; and his 
money is only current in his own land, and he has 
to get it changed before he can make his pur- 
chases. So, with a pocketful of it, he may as well be 
penniless. 

And, in like fashion, with all our strenuous 
efforts, which we are bound to make, and which 
there is joy in making, after these lower things that 
correspond to our efforts, we find that we have no 
coinage that will buy the good things of the Kingdom 
of Heaven, without which we faint and die. Our 
efforts are useless. Cana man by his penitence, by 
his tears, by his amendment, make it possible for the 
consequences of his past to be obliterated, or all 
changed in their character into fatherly chastisement ? 


120 THE GREAT PROCLAMATION, 


No. A thousand times, no. The superficial notions 
of Christianity, which are only too common amongst 
the educated and uneducated vulgar and un- 
spiritual, may suggest to a man, “You need no 
Divine intervention, if only you will get up from 
your sin, and do your best to keep up when you 
are up.” But those who realize more deeply what 
the significance of sin is, and what the eternal 
operation of its consequences upon the soul is, 
and what the awful majesty of a Divine righteous- 
ness is, learn that the man who has sinned cannot, 
by anything that he can do, obliterate that awful 
fact, or reduce it to insignificance, in its influence on 
the Divine relations to Him. It is only God that can 
do that. We have no money. 


So thirsty and penniless we stand—a desperate 


condition! Aye! brother, it 7s desperate, and it is the 
condition of every one of us. I wish I could turn the 
generalities of my text into the individuality of a 
personal address. I wish I could bring its wide- 
flowing beneficence to a sharp point that might touch 
your conscience, heart, and will. I cannot do that; 
you must do it for yourself. 

“Ho, every one that thirsteth.” Will you pause 
for a moment, and say to yourself, “That is me”? 
“And he that hath no money ”—that isme. “Come 
ye to the waters ”—that is me. The proclamation is 
for thine ear and for thy heart; and the gift is for thy 
hand and thy lips. 

II.—In what 1t consists. 

They tell an old story about the rejoicings at the 
coronation of some great king, when there was set up 


in the market-place a triple fountain, from each of 


+ a 


THE GREAT PROCLAMATION. 121 


whose three lips flowed a different kind of rare liquor, 
which any man who chose to bring a pitcher might 
fill from, at his choice. Notice my text, “Come ye 
to the waters” . . . “buy wineand milk.” The 
great fountain is set up in the market-place of the 
world, and every man may come; and whichever of 
this glorious trinity of effluents he needs most; there 
his lip may glue itself and there it may drink, 
be it “water” that refreshes, or “wine” that glad- 
dens, or “milk” that nourishes. They are all con- 
tained in this one great gift that flows out from 
the deep heart of God to the thirsty lips of parched 
humanity. 

And what does that mean? Well, we may say, 
salvation ; or we may use many other words to define 
the nature of the gifts. I venture to take a shorter 
one, and say, it means Christ. He, and not merely 
some truth about Him and His work; He Himself, in 
the fulness of His being, in the all-sufficiency of His 
love, in the reality of His presence, in the power of 
His sacrifice, in the daily derivation, into the heart 
that waits upon Him, of His life and His spirit, He is 
the all-sufficient supply of every thirst of every 
human soul, Do we want happiness? Christ gives 
us His joy, permanent and full, and not as the world 
gives. Do we want love? He gathers us to His 
heart, in which “there is no variableness, neither 
shadow cast by turning,” and binds us to Himself by 
bonds that Death, the separator, vainly attempts to 
untie, and which no unworthiness, ingratitude, cold- 
ness of ours, can ever provoke to change themselves, 
Do we want wisdom? He will dweli with us as our 
light. Do our hearts yearn for companionship? 


122 THE GREAT PROCLAMATION. 


With Him we shall never be solitary. Do we 
long for a bright hope which shall light up the 
dark future, and spread a rainbow span over the 
great gorge and gulf of death? Jesus Christ 
, Spans the void, and gives us unfailing and unde- 
ceiving hope. For everything that we need here 
or yonder, in heart, in will, in practical life, 
Jesus Christ Himself is the all-sufficient supply, 
“my life in death, my all in all.” What is offered 
in Him may be described by all the glorious and 
blessed names which men have invented to designate 
the various aspects of the good. These are the 
goodly pearls that men seek, but there is one of great 
price which is worth them all, and gathers into itself 
all their clouded and fragmentary splendours. Christ 
is all, and the soul that has Him shall never 
thirst. 

“Thou of life the fountain art, 

Freely let me take of Thee.” 


III.—Lastly, how do we get the gifts? 

The paradox of my text needs little explanation, 
“Buy without money and without price.” The con- 
tradiction on the surface is but intended to make 
emphatic this blessed truth, which I pray may reach 
your memories and hearts, that the only conditions 
are a sense of need, and a willingness to take—nothing 
else, and nothing more. We must recognize our 
penury, and must abandon self, and put away all 
ideas of having a finger in our own salvation, and be 
willing—which strangely and sadly enough, many of 
us are not—willing to be obliged to God’s unhelped 
and undeserved love for all. 


THE GREAT PROCLAMATION. 123 


Cheap things are seldom valued. Ask a high price 
and people think that the commodity is precious. -A 
man goes into a fair, for a wager, and he carries with 
him a tray full of gold watches and offers to sell 
them for a farthing apiece, and nobody will buy them. 
It does not, I hope, degrade the subject, if I say that 
Jesus Christ comes into the market-place of the world 
with His hands full of the gifts which the pierced 
hands have bought, that He may give them away. He 
says, “ Will you take them?” And one after another 
you pass by on the other side, and go away to another 
merchant, and buy dearly things that are not worth 
the having. 

“My father, my father, if the prophet had bid thee 
do some great thing, wouldst thou not have done it?” 
Would you not? Swung at the end of a pole, with 
hooks in your back; measured all the way from Cape 
Comorin to the Himalayas, lying down on your 
face and rising at each length; done a hundred 
things which heathens and Roman Catholics and 
unspiritual Protestants think are the way to get 
salvation; denied yourselves things that you would 
like to do; done things that you do not want 
to do; given money that you would like to 
keep; avoided habits that are very sweet; gone 
to church and chapel when you have no heart for 
worship ; and so tried to balance the account. If the 
prophet had bid thee do some great thing, thou 
wouldst have done it. How much rather when he 
says, Wash and be clean. “Nothing in my hand I 
bring.” You do not bring anything. “Simply to Thy 
cross I cling.” Do you? Do you? Jesus Christ 
catches up the “comes” of my text, and he says, 


124 THE GREAT PROCLAMATION. 


" Gans unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy 
laden, and I will give you rest.” “If any man thirst, 
let him come unto Me and drink.” Brethren, I lay it 
on your hearts and consciences to answer Him— 
never mind about me—to answer Him: “Sir, give 
me this water that I thirst not,” 


raat RENE 
Unbelieving Belief, 


“ Anp straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with 
tears, Lord, I believe ; help Thou mine unbelief.”—Mark ix. 24, 


is ) a 


3) 


» E owe to Mark’s Gospel the fullest account 
as of this pathetic incident of the healing 
Sh) apa of the demoniac boy. He alone gives 
EN Gs) us this part of the conversation between 

iver *t our Lord and the afflicted child’s father. 
The poor man had brought his boy to the disciples, 
and found them unable to do anything with him. A 
torrent of appeal breaks from his lips as soon as the 
Lord gives him an opportunity of speaking. He dwells 
upon all the piteous details, with that fondness for 
repetition which sorrow knows so well. Jesus gives 
him back his doubts. The father said: “If Thou 
canst do anything, have compassion on us and help 
us.” _Christ’s answer, according to the true reading, 
is not as it stands in our Authorised Version, “If 
Thou canst believe”—throwing as it were the responsi- 
bility on the man—but it is a quotation of the man’s 
word, “If Thou canst ?” as if He waved it aside with 
superb recognition of its utter unfitness to the present 
ease. “Say not, If Thou canst. That iscertain. All 
things are possible to thee” (not to do, but to get) 


Ei 


126 ONBELIEVING BELIEF. 


“if”—which is the only “if” in the case—*thou 
believest. Ican, and if thy faith lays hold on My 
omnipotence, all is done.” 

That majestic word is like the blow of steel upon 
flint; it strikes a little spark of faith which lights up 
the soul, and turns the smoky pillar of doubt into 
clear flame of confidence. “ Lord, I believe; help Thou 
mine unbelief.” 

I think in these wonderful words we have four 
things—the birth, the infancy, the cry, and the edu- 
cation of faith. And to these four I turn now. 

T.—First, then, note here the birth of faith. 

There are many ways to the temple, and it matters 
little by which of them a man travels, if so be he gets 
there. There is no royal road to the Christian faith 
which saves the soul. And yet, though identity of 
experience be not to be expected, men are like each 
other in the depths, and only unlike on the surfaces, 
of their being. And so one man’s experience carefully 
analyzed is very apt to give, at least, the rudiments of © 
the experience of all others who have been in similar 
circumstances. So I think we can see here, without 
insisting on any pedantic repetition of the same thing 
in every case, in broad outline, a sketch map of the 
road, There are three elements here: eager desire, 
the sense of utter helplessness, and the acceptance of 
Christ's calm assurances. Look at these three. 

This man knew what he wanted, and he wanted it 
very sorely. Whosoever has any intensity and reality 
of desire for the great gifts which Jesus Christ comes 
to bestow, has taken at least one step on the way to 
faith Conversely, the hindrances which block the 
path of a great many of us are simply that we do not 


UNBELIEVING BELIEF. 127 


care to possess the blessings which Jesus Christ in 
His Gospel offers. I am not talking now about 
so-called intellectual hindrances to belief, though I 
think that a great many of these, if carefully ex- 
amined, would be found, in the ultimate analysis, to 
repose upon this same stolid indifference to the 
blessings which Christianity offers. But what I wish 
to insist upon is that for large numbers of us, and 
no doubt for many men and women in this place 
now, the real reason why they have not trust in 
Jesus Christ is because they do not care to possess 
the blessings which Jesus Christ’ brings. Do you 
wish to have your sins forgiven? Has purity any 
attraction for you? Do youcare at allabout the calm 
and pure blessings of communion with God? Would 
you like to live always in the light of His face? Do 
you desire to be the masters of your own lusts and 
passions? | do not ask you, Do you wish to go to 
Heaven or to escape Hell, when you die? but I ask, 
Has that future in any of its aspects any such power 
over you as that it stirs you to any earnestness and 
persistency of desire, or is it all shadowy and vain, 
ineffectual and dim ? 
What we Christian teachers have to fight against 
is that we are charged to offer to you a blessing that 
you do not seek. and have to create a demand before 
there be any acceptance of the supply. ‘Give us the 
leeks and garlics of Egypt,” said the Hebrews in the 
wilderness ; “our soul loatheth this light bread.” So 
it is with many of us; we do not want goodness, God, 
quietness of conscience, purity of life, self-consecration 
to a lofty ideal, one-thousandth part as much as we 
long for success in our daily occupations, or some one 


128 UNBELIEVING BELIEF. 


or other of the delights that’ the world gives. I 
remember Luther, in his rough way, has a story— 
I think it is in his Table-talk—about a herd of 
swine to whom their keeper offered rich dainties, and 
the pigs said, “Give us grains.” That is what so 
many men do when Jesus Christ comes with His gifts 
and His blessings. They turn away, but if they were 
offered some poor earthly good, all their desires would 
go out towards it, and their eager hands would be 
scrambling who should first possess it. 

Oh! brethren, if we saw things as they are, and our 
needs as they are, nothing would kindle such intensity 
of longing in our hearts as that rejected or neglected 
promise of life eternal and Divine, which Jesus 
Christ brings. If I could only once kindle in some 
indifferent heart this longing, that heart would have 
taken at least the initial step to a life of Christian 
godliness. 

Further, we have here the other element of a sense 
of utter helplessness. How often this poor father had 
looked at his boy in the grip of the fiend, and had 
wrung his hands in despair that he could not do 
anything for him! That same sense of absolute 
impotence is one which we all, if we rightly understand 
what we need, must cherish. Can you forgive your 
own sins? Can you cleanse your own nature? Can 
you make yourselves other than you are, by any effort 
of volition, or by any painfulness of discipline? Toa 
certain small extent you can. In regard to superficial 
culture and eradication, your careful husbandry of 
your own wills may do much, but you cannot deal 
with your deepest needs. If we understand what 
is wanted in order to bring one soul into harmony 


UNBELIEVING BELIEF. 129 


and fellowship with God, we shall recognize that we 
ourselves can do nothing to save, and little to help, 
ourselves, “Hvery man his own redeemer,” which is 
the motto of some people nowadays, may do very well 
for fine weather and for superficial experience, but 
when the storm comes it proves a poor refuge, like the 
gay pavilions that they put up for festivals, which are 
all right whilst the sun is shining and the flags are 
fluttering, but are wretched shelters when the rain 
beats and the wind howls. We can do nothing for 
ourselves. The recognition of our own helplessness is 
the obverse, so to speak, and under-side of confidence 
in the Divine help. The coin, as it were, has its two 
faces. On the one is written, “Trust in the Lord”; 
on the other is written, “Nothing in myself.” A 
drowning man, if he tries to help himself, only 
encumbers his would-be rescuer, and may drown him 
too. The truest help he can give is to let the strong 
arm that has cleft the waters for his sake fling itself 
around him and bear him safe to land. So, eager 
desire after offered blessings and consciousness of my 
own impotence to secure them—these are the initial 
steps of faith, 

And the last of the elements here is listening to 
the calm assurance of Jesus Christ: “If thou canst! 
Do not say that to Me. I can. And because I can, 
all things are possible for thee to receive.” In like 
manner He stands at the door of each of our hearts 
and speaks to each of our needs, and says: “I can 
satisfy it. Rest for thy soul; cleansing for thy sins; 
satisfaction for thy desires; guidance for thy pilgrim- 
age; power for thy duties ; patience in thy sufferings 
—all these will come to thee, if thou layest hold of 

9 


186 UNBELIEVING BELIEF. 

My hand.’’ His assurance helps trembling confidence 
to be born, and out of doubt the great, calm word of 
the Master smites the fire of trust. And we, dear 
brethren, if we will listen to Him, shall surely find in 
Him all that we need. Think how marvellous it is 
that this Jewish peasant should plant Himself in the 
front of humanity, over against the burdened, sinful 
race of men, and pledge Himself to forgive and to 
cleanse their sins, to bear all their sicknesses, to be 
their strength in weakness, their comfort in sorrow, 


the rest of their hearts, their heaven upon earth, their ~ 


life in death, their glory in heaven, and their all in 
all; and not only should pledge Himself, but in the 
blessed experience of millions should have more than 
fulfilled all that He promised. ‘‘ They trusted in 
Him, and were lightened, and their faces were not 
ashamed.’’ Will you not answer His sovereign word 
of promise with your ‘‘ Lord! I believe ’’? 

II.—Then, secondly, we have here the infancy of 
faith. 

As soon as the consciousness of belief dawned upon 
the father, and the effort to exercise it was put forth, 
there sprang up the consciousness of its own imper- 
fection. He would never have known that he did 
not believe unless he had tried to believe. So it is in 
regard to all excellences and graces of character. The 
sense of possessing some feeble degree of any virtue 
or excellence, and the effort to put it forth, is the 
surest way of discovering how little of it we have. 
On the other side, sorrow for the lack of some form 
of goodness is itself a proof of the partial possession, 
in some rudimentary and incipient form, of that 
goodness. The utterly lazy man never mourns over 


7 


UNBELIEVING BELIEF. 131 


his idleness ; it is only the one that would fain work 
harder than he does, and already works tolerably 
hard, who does so. So the little spark of faith in 
this man’s heart, like a taper in a cavern, showed the 
abysses of darkness that lay unillumined round about 
it. 

Thus then, in its infancy, faith may and does co- 
exist with much unfaith and doubt. The same state 
of mind, looked at from its two opposite ends, as it 
were, may be designated faith or unbelief; just as a 
piece of shot silk, according to the angle at which you 
hold it, may show you only the bright colours of its 
warp or the dark ones of its weft. When you are 
travelling in a railway train with the sun streaming 
in at the windows, if you look out on the one hand, 
you will see the illumined face of every tree and blade 
of grass and house; and if you look out on the other, 
you will see the dark side. And so the same land- 
scape may seem to be all lit up by the sunshine of 
belief, or to be darkened by the gloom of distrust. 
If we consider how great and how perfect ought to 
be our confidence, to bear any due proportion to the 
firmness of that upon which it is built, we shall not 
be slow to believe that through life there will always 
be the presence, more or less, of these two elements. 
There will be all degrees of progress between the two 
extremes of infantile and mature faith. 

There follows from that thought this practical 
lesson, that the discovery of much unbelief should 
never make a man doubt the reality or genuineness 
of his little faith. We are all apt to write needlessly 
bitter things against ourselves when we get a glimpse 


of the incompleteness of our Christian life and 


132 UNBELIEVING BELIEF. 


character. But there is no reason why a man should 
fancy that he is a hypocrite because he finds out that 
he is not a perfect believer. But, on the other hand, let 
us remember that the main thing is not the maturity, 
but the progressive character, of faith. It was most 
natural that this man in our text, at the very first 
moment when he began to put his confidence in Jesus 
Christ as able to heal his child, should be aware orf 
much tremulousness mingling with it. But is it not 
most unnatural that there should be the same relative 
proportion of faith and unbelief in the heart and 
experience of those who have long professed to be 
Christians? You do not expect the infant to have 
adult limbs, but you do expect it to grow. True, faith 
at its beginning may be like a grain of mustard seed, 
but if the grain of mustard seed be alive, it will grow 
to a great tree, where all the fowls of the air can lodge 
in the branches. Oh! it is a crying shame and sin 
that there should be in all Christian communities so 
many grey-headed babies—men who have for years 
and years been professing to be Christ’s followers, and 
whose faith is but little, if at all, stronger—nay! 
perhaps is even obviously weaker—than it was in the 
first days of their profession. “Ye have need of milk, 
and not of strong meat,” very many of you. And 
your faith is made suspicious, not because it is feeble, 
but because it is not growing stronger. 

III.—Notice the cry of infant faith. 

“Help Thou mine unbelief” may have either of 
two meanings. The man’s desire was either that his 
faith should. be increased and his unbelief « helped” 
by being removed, by Christ’s operation upon his 
spirit, or that Christ would “help” him and his boy 


UNBELIEVING BELIEF. 183 


by healing the child, though the faith which asked 
the blessing was so feeble that it might be called 
unbelief. There is nothing in the language or in the 
context to determine which of these two meanings is 
intended ; we must settle it by our own sense of what 
would be most likely under the circumstances. To 
me it seems extremely improbable that, when the 
father’s whole soul was absorbed in the healing of his 
son, he should turn aside to ask for the inward and 
spiritual process of having his faith strengthened. 
Rather he said, “ Heal my child, though it is unbelief 
as much as faith that asks Thee to do it.” 

The lesson is that, even when we are conscious of 
much tremulousness in our faith, we have a right to 
ask and expect that it shall be answered. Weak 
faith is faith, The tremulous hand does touch. The 
cord may be slender asa spider's web that binds a 
heart to Jesus, but it does bind. The poor woman in 
the other miracle, who put out her wasted finger-tip, 
coming behind Him in the crowd, and stealthily 
touching the hem of His garment, though it was only 
the end of her finger-nail that was on the robe, 
carried away with her the blessing. And so the 
feeblest faith joins the soul, in the measure of its 
strength, to Jesus Christ. 

But let us remember that, whilst thus the cry of 
infant faith is heard, the stronger voice of stronger 
faith is more abundantly heard. Jesus Christ once 
for all laid down the law when He said to one of the 
suppliants at His feet, “ According to your faith be it 
unto you.” The measure of our belief is the measure 
of our blessing. The wider you open the door, the 
more angels will crowd into it, with their white wings 


"34 ; UNBELIEVING BELIEF. 


and their calm faces. The bore of the pipe determines 
the amount of water that flows into the cistern. 
Every man gets, in the measure in which he desires. 
Though a tremulous hand may hold out a cup into 
which Jesus Christ will not refuse to pour the wine 
of the Kingdom, yet the tremulous hand will spill 
much of the blessing; and he that would have the 
full enjoyment of the mercies promised, and possible, 
must “ask in faith, nothing wavering.” The sensitive 
paper, which records the hours of sunshine in a day, 
has great gaps upon its line of light answering to the 
times when clouds have obscured the sun; and the 
communication of blessings from God is intermittent, 
if there be intermittency of faith. If you desire an 
unbroken line of mercy, joy, and peace, keep up an 
unbroken continuity of trustful confidence. 

IV.—Lastly, we have here the education of faith. 
Christ paid no heed in words to this confession 
of unbelief, but proceeded to do the work which 
answered the prayer in both its possible meanings. 
He responded to imperfect confidence by His perfect 
work of cure; and, by that perfect work of cure, 
He strengthened the imperfect confidence which it 
answered. 

Thus He educates us by His answers—His over- 
answers—to our poor desires; and the abundance of 
His gfits rebukes the poverty of our petitions, more 
emphatically than any words of remonstrance before- 
hand could have done. He does not lecture us into 
faith, but He blesses us into it. When the Apostle 
was sinking in the flood, Jesus Christ said no word 
of reproach until He had grasped him with His 
strong hand, and held him safe, And then, when Christ’s 


UNBELIEVING BELIEF. 135 


sustaining touch thrilled through all Peter’s frame, 
then, and not till then, He said—as we may fancy, 
with a smile on His face that the moonlight showed, 
as knowing how unanswerable His question was— 
““O thou of little faith; wherefore didst thou 
doubt?’’ That is how He will deal with us if we 
will ; over-answering our tremulous petitions, and so 
teaching us to hope more abundantly that we shall 
praise Him more and more. 

The disappointments, the weaknesses, the shame- 
ful defeats which come when our confidence fails, are 
another page of His lesson-book. ‘The same Apostle 
of whom I have been speaking got that lesson when, 
standing on the billows, and, instead of looking at 
Christ, looking at their wrath and foam, his heart 
failed him, and because his heart failed him, he be- 
gan to sink. If we turn away from Jesus Christ, and 
interrupt the continuity of our faith by calculating 
the height of the breakers and the weight of the 
water that is in them, and what will become of us 
when they topple over with their white crests upon 
our heads, then gravity will begin to work, and we 
shall begin to sink. And well for us if, when we 
have sunk as far as our knees, we look again to the 
Master and say, ‘‘ Lord! save me;I perish!’’ The 
weakness which is our own when faith sleeps, and the 
rejoicing power which is ours because it is His, when 
faith wakes, are God’s education of it to fuller and 
ampler degrees and depth. We shall lose the mean- 
ing of life, and the best lesson that joy and sorrow, 
calm and storm, victory and defeat, can give us, un- 
less all these make us ‘‘rooted and grounded in faith.’’ 

Dear friend, do you desire your truest good? Do 


136 UNBELIEVING BELIEF. 


you know that you cannot win it, or fight for it to 
gain it, or do anything to obtain it, in your own 
strength? Have you heard Jesus Christ saying to 
you, “Come . . . and I will give you rest ?” 
Oh! I beseech you do not turn away from Him, but 
like this agonized father in our story, fall at His feet 
with “Lord! I believe; help Thou mine unbelief,” 
and ,He will confirm your feeble faith by His rich 
response, 


XIV. 


The Sluggard in harvest. 


Tue sluggard will not plough by reason of the cold; therefore 
shall he beg in karvest and have nothing,” PROVERBS xx, 4, 


Rabe Iii 5 IKE all the sayings of this book, this is 
Ss Li simply a piece of plain, practical com- 
NN ears 3:| mon sense. It is intended to inculcate 
JES the lesson that men should diligently 
<== seize the opportunity whilst it is 
theirs. The sluggard is one of the pet aversions of 
the Book of Proverbs, which, unlike most other © 
manuals of Eastern wisdom, has a profound reverence 
for honest work. 

He isa great drone, for he prefers the chimney- 
corner to the field, even although it cannot have been 
very cold, if the weather was open enough to admit of 
ploughing. And he isa great fool, too, for he buys 
his comfort at a very dear price, as do all men who 
live for to-day, and let to-morrow look out for itself. 

But, like most of the other sayings of this book, my 
text contains principles which are true in the highest 
regions of human life, for the laws which rule up 
there are not different from those which regulate the 
motions of its lower phases. Religion recognizes the 


138 THE SLUGGARD IN HARVEST. 


same practical common-sense principles that daily 
business does. I venture to take this as my text 
now, in addressing young people, because they have 
special need of, and special facilities for, the wisdom 
which it enjoins ; and because the words only want to 
be turned with their faces heavenwards in order to 
enforce the great appeal, the only one which it is 
worth my while to make and worth your while to 
come here to listen to ; the appeal to each of you: ‘*I 
beseech you, by the mercies of God, that ye yield 
yourselves to God ’’ now. 

My object, then, will be perhaps best accomplished 
if I simply ask you to look, first, at the principles 
involved in this quaint proverb; and, secondly, to 
apply them in one or two directions. 

I.—First, then, let us try to bring out the principles 
which are crystallized in this picturesque saying. 

The first thought evidently is: present conduct 
determines future conditions. Life is a series of 
epochs, each of which has its destined work,and that 
being done, all is well; and that being left undone, 
all is ill. 

Now, of course, in regard of many of the accidents 
of a man’s condition, his conduct is only one, and by 
no means the most powerful, of the factors which 
settle them. The position which a man fills, the tasks 
which he has to perform, and the whole host of 
things which make up the externals of his life, 
depend upon far other conditions than any that he 
brings to them. But yet, on the whole, it is true that 
what a man does, and is, settles how he fares. And 
this is the mystical importance and awful solemnity 
of the most undistinguished moments and most trivial 


THE SLUGGARD IN HARVEST. 139 


acts of this awful life of ours, that each of them has 
an influence on all that comes after, and may deflect 
our whole course into altogether different paths. It 
is not only the moments that we vulgarly and blindly 
call great which settle our condition. But it is the 
accumulation of the tiny ones; the small deeds, the 
unnoticed acts, which make up so large a portion of 
every man’s life—it is these, after all, that are the 
most powerful in settling what we shall be. There 
come to each of us supreme moments in our lives. 
Yes, and if in all the subordinate and insignificant 
moments we have not been getting ready for them, 
but have been nurturing dispositions and acquiring 
habits and cultivating ways of acting and thinking 
which condemn us to fail beneath the requirements 
of the supreme moment, then it passes us by, and we 
gain nothing from it. Tiny mica flakes have built 
up the Matterhorn, and the minute acts of life after 
all, by their multiplicity, make life to be what it is. 
“Sand is heavy,’’ says this wise Book of Proverbs. 
The aggregation of the minutest grains, singly so 
light that they would not affect the most delicate 
balance, weighs upon‘us with a weight ‘‘ heavy as 
frost, and deep almost as life.’’ The mystic signifi- 
cance of the trivialities of life is that in them we 
largely make destiny, and that in them we wholly 
make character. 

And now, whilst this is true about all life, it .is 
- especially true about youth. You have facilities for 
moulding your being which some of us older men 
would give a great deal to have again for a moment 
with our present knowledge and bitter experience. 
The lava that has solidified into hard rock with us is 


140 THE SLUGGARD IN HARVEST. 


yet molten and plastic with you. You can, I was 
going to say, be anything you make up your minds to; 
and, within reasonable limits, the bold saying is true. 
“ Ask what thou wilt and it shall be given to thee” is 
what Nature and Providence, almost as really as grace 
and Christ, say to every young man and woman, 
because you are the arbiters, not wholly, indeed, of 
your destiny, and are the architects, altogether, of 
your character, which is more. 

And so I desire to lay upon your hearts this thread- 
bare old truth, because you are living in the ploughing 
time, and the harvest is months ahead. Whilst it is 
true that every day is the child of all the yesterdays, 
and the parent of all the to-morrows, it is also true 
that life has its predominant colouring, varying at 
different epochs, and that for you, though you are 
largely inheriting, even now, the results of your past, 
brief as it is, still more largely is the future, the plastic 
future, in your hands, to be shaped into such formsas 
you will. “The child is father of the man,” and the 
youth has the blessed prerogative of standing before 
the mouldable to-morrow, and possessing a nature still 
capable of being cast into an almost infinite variety of 
form. 

But then, not only do you stand with special 
advantages for making yourselves what you will, but 
you specially need to be reminded of the terrible - 
importance and significance of each moment. For 
this is the very irony of human life, that we seldom 
awake to the sense of its importance till it is nearly 
ended, and that the period when reflection would 
avail the most is precisely the period when it is the 
least strong and habitual. What is the use of an old 


THE SLUGGARD IN HARVEST. 141 


man like me thinking about what he could make of 
life if he had it to do over again, as compared with 
the advantage of your thinking what you will make 
of it. Yet I daresay that for once that you think 
thus, many old men do it fifty times. So, not to abate 
one jot of your buoyancy, not to cast any shadow 
over joys and hopes, but to lift you to a sense of the 
blessed possibilities of your position, I want to lay 
this principle of my text upon your consciences, and 
to beseech you to try to keep it operatively in mind 
—you are making yourselves, and settling your 
destiny, by every day of your plastic youth. 

There is another principle as clear in my text—viz., 
the easy road is generally the wrong one. The slug- 
gard was warmer at the fireside than he would be in 
the field with his plough, in the north wind, and so 
he stopped there. There are always obstacles in the 
way of noble life. It is always easier, as flesh 
judges, to live ignobly, than to live as Jesus Christ 
would have us live. “Endure hardness” is the com- 
mandment to all who would be soldiers of any great 
cause, and would not fling away their lives in low 
self-indulgence. If a man is going to be anything 
worth being, or to do anything worth doing, he must 
start with, and adhere to, the resolve “to scorn de- 
lights and live laborious days.” And only then has 
he a chance of rising above the fat dull weed that 
rots in Lethe’s stream, and of living anything like 
the life that it becomes him to live. | 

Be sure of this, dear young friends, that self-denial 
and rigid self-control, in its two forms, of stopping 
your ears to the attractions of lower pleasures, and of 
cheerily encountering difficulties, is an indispensable 


142 THE SLUGGARD IN HARVEST. 


condition of any life which shall at the last yield a 
harvest worth the gathering, and not destined to be 
‘‘ cast as rubbish to the void, when God hath made 
the pile complete.’’ Never allow yourselves to be 
turned away from the plain path of duty by any 
difficulties. Never allow yourselves to be guided in 
your choice of a road by the consideration that the 
turf is smooth, and the flowers by the side of it 
sweet. Remember, the sluggard would have been 
warmer, with a wholesome warmth, at the plough- 
tail than cowering in the chimney-corner. And the 
things that seem to be difficulties and hardships only 
need to be fronted to yield, like the east wind in its 
season, good results in bracing and hardening. Fix 
it in your minds that nothing worth doing is done 
but at the cost of difficulty and toil. 

That is a lesson that this generation wants, even 
more than some that have preceded it. I suppose it 
is one of the temptations of older men to look ask- 
ance upon the amusements of younger ones, but I 
cannot help lifting up here one word of earnest 
appeal to the young men and women of this congre- 
gation, and beseeching them, as they value the noble- 
ness of their own lives, and their power of doing any 
real good, to beware of what seems to me the alto- 
gether extravagant and excessive love of, and follow- 
ing after, mere amusement which characterises this 
day to so large an extent. Better toil than such 
devotion to mere relaxation ! 

The last principle here is that the season let slip is 
gone for ever. Whether my text, in its second 
picture, intends us to think of the sluggard, when the 
harvest came, as “ begging’’ from his neighbours; 


THE SLUGGARD IN HARVEST. 143 


or whether, as is possibly the construction of the 
Hebrew, it simply means to describe him as going out 
into his field, and looking at it, and asking for the 
harvest and seeing nothing there but weeds, the les- 
son it conveys is the same. The old, old lesson, so 
threadbare that I should be almost ashamed of taking 
up your time with it, unless I believed that you did 
not lay it to heart as you should. Opportunity is bald 
behind, and must be grasped by the forelock. Life is 
full of tragic might-have-beens. No regret, no re- 
morse, no self-accusation, no clear recognition that I 
was a fool will avail one jot. The time for ploughing 
is past; you cannot stick the share into the ground 
when you should be wielding the sickle. ‘‘ Too late ’’ 
is the saddest of human words. And, my brother, as 
the stages of our lives roll on, unless each is filled, as 
it passes, with the discharge of the duties, and the 
appropriation of the benefits which it brings, then, to 
all eternity, that moment will never return, and the 
sluggard may beg in harvest that he may have the 
chance to plough once more, and have none. The 
student who has spent the term in indolence, perhaps 
dissipation, has no time to get up his subject when he 
is in the examination room, with the paper before 
him. And life, and nature, and God’s law, which is 
the Christian expression for the godless word nature, 
are stern taskmasters, and demand that the duty 
shall be done in its season or left undone for ever. 

II.—In the second place, let me just, in a few 
words, carry the lamp of these principles of my text 
and flash its rays upon one or two subjects. 

Let me say a word, first, about the lowest sphere 
to which my text applies. I referred at the beginning 


144 THE SLUGGARD IN HARVEST. 


of this discourse to this proverb as simply an inculca- 
tion of the duty of honest work, and of the necessity 
of being wide awake to opportunities in our daily 
work. Now, the most of you young men, and many 
of you young women, are destined for ordinary trades, 
professions, walks in commerce; and I do not suppose 
it to be beneath the dignity of the pulpit to say this: 
Do not trust to any way of getting on by dodges or 
speculation, or favour, or by anything but downright 
hard work. Don’t shirk ditficulties, don’t try to put 
the weight of the work upon some colleague or other, 
that you may have an easier life of it. Set your 
backs to your tasks, and remember that “in all labour 
there is profit”; and whether the profit comes to you 
in the shape of advancement, position, promotion in 
your offices, partnerships perhaps, wealth, and the 
like, or no, the profit lies in the work. Honest toil is 
the key to pleasure. 

Then, let me apply the text in a somewhat higher 
direction. Carry these principles with you in the 
cultivation of that important part of yourself—your 
intellects. What would some of us old students give 
if we had the flexibility, the power of assimilating 
new truth, the retentive memories, that you young 
people have! Some of you, perhaps, are students by 
profession ; I should like all of you to make a con- 
science of making the best of your brains, as God 
‘has given them to you in trust. “The sluggard will 
not plough by reason of the cold.” The dawdler 
will read no books that tax his intellect, therefore 
shall he beg in harvest and have nothing. Amidst 
all the flood of feeble, foolish, flaccid literature with 
which we are afilicted at this day, I wonder how many 


THE SLUGGARD IN HARVEST. 145 


of you young men and women ever set yourselves to 
some great book or subject that you cannot under- 
stand without effort. Unless you do, you are not 
faithful stewards of God’s supreme gift of that great 
faculty which apprehends and lives upon truth. So 
remember the sluggard by his fireside; and do you 
get out with your plough. 

Again, I may apply these principles to a higher 
work still—that of the formation of character. 
Nothing will come to you noble, great, or elevating 
in that direction unless it is sought, and sought with 
toil, 

“ In woods, in waves, in wars, she’s wont to dwell, 
And will be found with peril and with pain ; 


Before her gate high Heaven did sweat ordain, 
And wakeful watches ever to abide.” 


Wisdom and truth, and all their elevating effects 
upon human character, absolutely require for their 
acquirement effort and toil. You have the oppor- 
tunity still. As I said a moment ago—you may 
mould yourselves into noble forms. But in the 
making of character we have to work as a painter in 
fresco does, with a swift brush on the plaster while it 
is wet. It sets and hardens in an hour. And men 
drift into habits which become tyrannies and dominant, 
before they know where they are. Do not let your- 
selves be shaped by accident, by circumstance. 
Remember that you can build yourselves up into 
forms of beauty by the help of the grace of God, and 
that, for such building, there must be the diligent 
labour and that wise clutching at opportunity and 
understanding of the times, which my text suggests. 

And, lastly, let these principles be applied to religion 

10 


146 THE SLUGGARD IN HARVEST. 


and teach us the wisdom and necessity of beginning 
the Christian life at the earliest moment. I am by no 
means prepared to say that the extreme tragedy of 
my text can ever be wrought out, in regard to the 
religious experience of any man, here’on earth ; for I 
believe that, at any moment in his career, however 
faultful and stained his past has been, and however 
long and obstinate has been his continuance in evil, a 
man may turn himself to Jesus Christ, and beg, and 
not in vain, nor ever find “nothing” there. 

But whilst all that is quite true, I want you, dear 
young friends, to lay this to heart, that if you do not 
yield yourselves to Jesus Christ now, in your early days, 
and take Him for your Saviour, and rest your souls 
upon Him, and then take Him for your Captain and 
Commander, for your Pattern and Example, for your 
Companion and your aim, you will lose what you can 
never make up by any future course. You lose years 
of blessedness, of peaceful society with Him, of illumi- 
nation and inspiration. You lose all the sweetness of 
the days which you spend away from Him. And if at 
the end you did come to Him, you would have one 
regret, deep and permanent, that you had not gone to 
Him before. If you put off, as some of you are 
putting off, what you know you ought to do—namely, 
to give your hearts to Jesus Christ and become His— 
think of what you are laying up for yourselves thereby. 
You get much that it would be gain to lose—bitter 
memories, defiled imaginations, stings of conscience, 
habits that it will be very hard to break, and the sense 
of having wasted the best part of your lives, and 
having but the fag end to bring to Him. And if you 
put off, as some of you are disposed to do—think of 


THE SLUGGARD IN HARVEST. 147 


the risk yourun. It is very unlikely that suscepti- 
bilities will remain if they are trifled with. You 
remember that Felix trembled once, and sent for Paul 
often ; but we never hear that he trembled any more, 
And it is quite possible, and quite likely, more likely 
than not, that you will never be as near being a 
Christian again as you are now, if you turn away 
from the impressions that are made upon you at this 
moment, and stifle your half-formed resolution. 

But there is a more solemn thought still. This life 
as a whole is to the future life as the ploughing time 
is to the harvest, and there are awful words in Scrip- 
ture, which seem to point in the same direction in 
reference to the irrevocable and irreversible issue of 
neglected opportunities on earth, as this proverb does 
in regard to the ploughing and harvests of this life. 

I dare not conceal what seems to me the New Testa- 
ment confirmation and deepening of the solemn words 
of our text, “ He shall beg in harvest and have nothing,’ 
by the Master’s words, “ Many shall say to Me in that 
day, Lord! Lord! and I will say I never knew you.” 
The five virgins, who rubbed their sleepy eyes and 
asked for oil when the master was at hand, got none; 
and when they besought, “Lord! Lord! open to us,” 
all the answer was, “Too late! too late! ye cannot 
enter now.” Now, while it is called day, harden not 


your hearts. 


ee el ee od 


10° 


XV. 


Simplicity towards Christ. 


“T PHAR lest by any means your minds should be corrupted from 
the simplicity that is in Christ.” —2 Cor. xi. 3. 


alterations, reads, “the simplicity that 
is towards Christ.” 

The inaccurate rendering of the 
Authorized Version is responsible for 
& mistake in the meaning of these words, which has 
done much harm. They have been supposed to 
describe a quality or characteristic belonging to Christ 
or the Gospel; and, so construed, they have some- 
times been made the watchword of narrowness and of 
intellectual indolence. “Give us the simple Gospel ” 
has been the cry of people who have thought them- 
selves to be evangelical when they were only lazy, 
and the consequence has been that preachers have 
been expected to reiterate commonplaces, which have 
made both them and their hearers listless, and to sink 
the educational for the evangelistic aspect of the 
Christian teacher’s function. 

It is quite true that the Gospel is simple, but it is 
also true that it is deep, and they will best appreciate 
its simplicity who have most honestly endeavoured to 


SIMPLICITY TOWARDS CHRIST. nt 149. 


fathom its depth. When we let our little sounding 
lines out, and find that they do not reach the bottom, 
we begin to wonder even more at the transparency of 
the clear abyss. It is not simplicity i Christ, but 
toward Christ of which the Apostle is speaking; not 
a quality in Him, but a quality in us towards Him. 
I wish, then, now to turn to the two thoughts 
that these words suggest—first and chiefly, the 
attitude towards Christ which befits our relation to 
Him ; and, secondly and briefly, the solicitude for its 
maintenance. 

J.—First, then, consider the attitude towards Christ 
which befits the Christian relation to Him. 

The word “simplicity” has had a touch of con- 
tempt associated with it. It is a somewhat doubtful 
compliment to say of a man that he is “simple- 
minded.” All noble words which describe great 
qualities get oxydized by exposure to the atmosphere, 
and rust comes over them, as, indeed, all good things 
tend to become deteriorated in time and by use. But 
the notion of the word is really a very noble and lofty 
one. To be “without a fold,” which is the meaning 
of the Greek and of the equivalent “ simplicity,” is, in 
one aspect, to be transparently honest and true, and 
in another to be out and out of a piece. There is no 
underside of the cloth, doubled up beneath the upper 
which shows, and running in the opposite direction ; 
but all tends in one way. A man with no under- 
currents, no by-ends, who is, down to the very roots, 
what he looks, and all whose being is knit together 
and hurled in one direction, without reservation or 
back-drawing, that is the “simple” man whom the 
Apostle means. Such simplicity is the truest wisdom 


150 SIMPLICITY TOWARDS CHRIST. 


Such simplicity of devotion to Jesus Christ is the only 
attitude of heart and mind which corresponds to the 
facts of our relation to Him. That relation is set 
forth in the context by a very sweet and tender image, 
in the true line of Scriptural teaching, which in many 
a place speaks of the Bride and Bridegroom, and 
which on its last page shows us the Lamb’s wife 
descending from Heaven to meet her husband. The 
state of devout souls and of the community of such 
here on earth is that of betrothal. Their state in 
heaven is that of marriage. Very beautiful it is to see 
how this fiery Paul, like the ascetic John, who never 
knew the sacred joys of that state, lays hold of the 
thoughts of the Bridegroom and the Bride, and of 
his own relation to both, as indicating the duties of 
the Church and the solicitude of the Apostle. He 
says that he has been the intermediary who, according 
to Oriental custom, arranged the preliminaries of the 
marriage, and brought the bride to the bridegroom; 
and, as the friend of the latter standing by rejoices 
greatly to hear the bridegroom’s voice, and is solicitous 
mainly that in the tremulous heart of the betrothed 
there should be no admixture of other loves, but a 
whole-hearted devotion, an exclusive affection, and an 
absolute obedience, “I have espoused you,” says he, 
“to one husband that I may present you as a chaste 
virgin to Christ. But I fearlest . . . your mind 
should be corrupted from the simplicity that is 
towards Him.” 

Now that metaphor carries in its implication all 
that anybody can say about the exclusiveness, the 
depth, the purity, the all-pervasiveness of the de- 
pendent love which should knit us to Jesus Christ. 


SIMPLICITY TOWARDS CHRIST. mel) 


The same thought of whole-hearted, single, absolute 
~devotion is conveyed by other Scripture metaphors, 
the slave and the soldier of Christ. But all that is 
repellent or harsh in these is softened and glorified 
when we contemplate it in the light of the metaphor 
of my text. 

So I might leave it to do its own work, but I may 
_ perhaps be allowed to follow out the thought i In one 
or two directions. 

The attitude, then, which corresponds to our 
relation to Jesus Christ is, first, that of a faith which 
looks to Him exclusively as the source of salvation 
and of light. The specific danger which was alarming 
Paul, in reference to that community of Christians 
_ in Corinth, was one which, in its particular form, is 
long since dead and buried. But the principles 
which underlay it, the tendencies to which it appealed, 
and the perils which Paul foresaw for the Corinthian 
Church, are perennial. He feared that these Juda- 
izing teachers, who dogged his heels all his life long, 
and whose one aim seemed to be to build upon his 
foundation and to overthrow his building, should find 
their way into this church and wreck it. The keen- 
ness of the polemic, in this and in the contextual 
chapters, shows how real and imminent the danger 
was. Now what these men did was to tell people that 
Jesus Christ had a partner in His saving work. They 
said that obedience to the Jewish law, ceremonial and 
other, was a condition of salvation, along with trust 
in Jesus Christ as the Messiah. And because they 
thus shared out the work of salvation between Jesus 
Christ and something else, Paul thundered and 
lightened at them all his life, and, as he tells us in 


152 SIMPLICITY TOWARDS CHRIST. 


this context, regarded them as preaching another 
Jesus, another spirit, and another gospel. 

That particular error is long dead and buried. But 
is there nothing else that has come into its place ? 
Has this old foe not got a new face, and does not it 
live amongst us as really as it lived then? I think it 
does ; whether in the form of the grosser kind of sacra- 
mentarianism and ecclesiasticism which sticks sacra- 
ments and a church in front of the Cross, or in the 
form of the definite denial that Jesus Christ’s death on 
the Cross is the one means of salvation, or simply in 
the form of the coarse, common wish to have a finger 
in the pie and a share in the work of saving myself, 
as a drowning man will sometimes half drown his 
rescuer by trying to use his own limbs. These ten- 
dencies which Paul fought, and which he feared would 
corrupt the Corinthian Christians from their simple 
and exclusive reliance on Christ and Christ alone as 
the ground and author of their salvation, are perennial 
in human nature. And we have to be on our guard 
for ever and for ever against them. Whether they 
come in organized, systematic, doctrinal form, or 
whether they are simply the rising in our own hearts 
of the old Adam of pride and self-trust, they equally 
destroy the whole work of Christ, because they infringe 
upon its solitarmess and uniqueness. We are not to 
trust Christ and anything else. Menare not saved by 
a syndicate. It is Jesus Christ alone, and “beside 
Him there is no Saviour.” You go into a Turkish 
mosque and see the roof held up by a forest of slim 
pillars. You go into a cathedral chapter-house, and 
there is one strong support in the centre that bears 
the whole roof. The one is an emblem of the Christ- 


SIMPLICITY TOWARDS CHRIST. 153 


less multiplicity of vain supports, the other of the 
solitary strength and eternal sufficiency of the one 
pillar on which the whole weight of a world’s salva- 
tion rests, and which lightly bears it triumphantly 
aloft. “I fear lest your minds be corrupted from the 
simplicity” of a reasonable faith directed towards 
Christ. 

And in like manner He is the sole light and teacher 
of men as to God, themselves, their duty, their des- 
tinies and prospects; He and He alone brings these 
things to light. His word, whether it comes from His 
lips or from the deeds which are part of His revela- 
tion, or fram the voice of the Spirit which takes of 
His and speaks to the ages through His apostles, 
should be “the end of all strife.’. What He says, and 
all that He says, and nothing else than what He says, 
is the creed of the Christian. He and He only is 
“the light which lighteth every man that cometh into 
the world.’ In this day of babblements and confu- 
sions, let us listen for the voice of Christ and accept 
all which comes from Him. and let the language of 
our deepest hearts be, “Lord to whom shall we go? 
Thou only hast the words of eternal life.” 

Again, our relation to Jesus Christ demands exclu- 
sive love to Him. “Demands” is an ugly werd to 
bracket with love. We might say and perhaps more 
truly, permits or privileges It is the joy of the . 
betrothed that her duty is to love and to keep her 
heart clear from all competing affecticns.- But it is 
none the less her duty because it is her joy What 
Christ is to you, if you are a Christian, and what 
He wants to be to us all, whether we are Christians 
or not, is of such a kind that the only fitting 


154 SIMPLICITY TOWARDS CHRIST. 


attitude of our hearts to Him in response is that of 
exclusive affection. I do not mean that we are to 
love nothing but Him, but I mean that we are to love 
all things else in Him, and that, if any creature so 
delays or deflects our love as that either it does not, 
. pass by means of the creature into the presence of 

the Christ, or is turned away from the Christ by the 
creature, then we have fallen beneath the sweet level 
of our lofty privilege, and have won for ourselves the 
misery due to distracted and idolatrous hearts. Love 
to one who has done what He has done for us is in 
its very nature exclusive, and its exclusiveness is 
complete exclusiveness. The centre diamond makes 
the little stones set round it all the more lustrous. 
We must love Jesus Christ all in all or not at all. 
Divided love incurs the condemnation that falls 
heavily upon the head of the faithless bride. 

Dear friends, the conception of the essence of 
religion as being love is no relaxation, but an increase, 
of its stringent requirements. The more we think of 
that sweet bond as being the true union of the soul 
with God, who is its only rest and home, the more 
reasonable and imperative will appear the old com- 
mandment, “Thou shalt love Him with all thy heart, 
and soul, and strength, and mind.” 

But, further, our relation to Jesus Christ is such as 
that nothing short of absolute obedience to His com- 
mandments corresponds to it. There must be the 
simplicity, the single-mindedness that thus obeys, 
and obeys swiftly, cheerfully, constantly. In all mat- 
ters His command is my law, and, as surely as I 
make His command my law, will He make my 
desire the mould and measure for His gifts. For 


/ 


i a i a es al 


—s 


SIMPLICITY TOWARDS CHRIST. 158 


He Himself has said, in words that bring together 
our obedience to His will, and His compliance with 
our wishes, in a fashion that we should not have 
ventured upon unless He had set us an example, 
“Tf ye love Me keep My commandments. If ye ask 
anything im My name I will do it.” The exclusive 
love that binds us, by reason of our faith in Him, 
to that sole Lord ought to express itself in unhesi- 
tating, unfaltering, unreserved, and unreluctant obedi- 
ence to every word that comes from His mouth. 

These brief outlines are but the poorest attempt to 
draw out what the words of my textimply. Butsuch 
as they are, let us remember that they do set forth the 
only proper response of the saved man to the saving 
Christ. “Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.” Any- 
thing short of a faith that rests on Him alone, of a 
love that knits itself to His single, all-sufficient heart, 
and of an obedience that bows the whole being to the 
sweet yoke of His commandment, is an unworthy 
answer to the love that died, and that lives for us all 

_ II—And now I have only time to glance at the 
solicitude for the maintenance of this exclusive single- 
mindedness towards Christ. 

Think of what threatens it. I say nothing about 
the ferment of opinion in this day, for for one man 
that is swept away from a thorough whole-hearted 
faith by intellectual considerations, there are a dozen 
from whom it is filched without their knowing it, by 
their own weaknesses, and the world’s noises. And so 
it is more profitable that we should think of the 
whole crowd of external duties, enjoyments, sweet- 
nesses, bitternesses, that solicit us, and seek to draw 
us away. Who can hear the low voice that speaks 


156 SIMPLICITY TOWARDS CHRIST. 


peace and wisdom when Niagara is roaring past his 
ears ? “The world is too much with us, late and soon 
Buying and selling we lay waste our powers,” and 
break ourselves away from our simple devotion to that 
dear Lord. But it is possible that we may so carry 
into all the whirl a central peace, as that we shall 
not be disturbed by it; and possible that, “ whether 
we eat or drink, or whatsoever we do, we may do all 
to His glory,” so that we can, even in the midst of our 
daily pressing avocations and cares, be keeping our 
hearts in the Heavens, and our souls in touch with 
our Lord. 

But it is not only things without that draw us away. 
Our own weaknesses and waywardnesses, our strong 
senses, our passions, our desires, our necessities, all 
these have a counteracting force, which needs con- 
tinual watchfulness in order to be neutralized. No 
man can grasp a stay, which alone keeps him from 
being immersed in the waves, with uniform tenacity, 
unless every now and then he tightens his muscles. 
And no man can keep himself firmly grasping Jesus 
Christ, without conscious effort directed to bettering 
his hold. 

If there are dangers around us, and dangers within 
us, the discipline, which we have to pursue in order to 
secure this uniform single-hearted devotion, is plain 
enough. Let us be vividly conscious of the peril— 
which is what some of us are not. Let us take stock 
of ourselves, lest creeping evil may be encroaching 
upon us, while we are all unaware—which is what 
some of us never do. Let us clearly contemplate the 
possibility of an indefinite increase in the closeness 
and thoroughness of our surrender to Him—a con- 


—s- 


SIMPLICITY TOWARDS CHRIST. 157 


viction which has faded away from the minds of many 
professing Christians. Above all, let us find or 
make time for the patient, habitual contemplation of 
the great facts which kindle our devotion. For if you 
never think of Jesus Christ and His love to you, how 
can you love Him backagain? And if you areso busy 
carrying out your own secular affairs, or pursuing 
your own ambitions, or attending to your own duties 
(as they may seem to be) that you have no time to 
think of Christ, His death, His life, His Spirit, His 
yearning heart over His bride, how can it be expected 
that you will have any depth of love to Him? Let 
us, too, wait with prayerful patience for that Divine 
Spirit who will knit more closely to our Lord. e 

Unless we do, we shall get no happiness out of our 
religion, and it will bring no praise to Christ or profit 
to ourselves. Ido not know amore miserable man 
than a half-and-half Christian, after the pattern of, I 
was going to say, the ordinary average of professing 
Christians of this generation. He has religion enough 
to prick and sting him, and not enough to impel him 
to forsake the evil, which yet he cannot comfortably 
do. He has religion*enough to inflame his con- 
science, not enough to subdue his will and heart. 
How many of my hearers are in that condition it is: 
for them to settle. If we are to be Christian men at 
all, let us be so out and out. Half-and-half religion is 
no religion. 

“ One foot on land, and one on sea. 
To one thing constant never!” 

That is the type of thousands of professing Christians, 
“T fear lest by any means your minds be corrupted 
from the simplicity that is towards Christ.” 


XVL 
The Race and the Goal. - 


“THs one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, 
and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press 
toward the mark for the prize.” —PHIL. iii, 18, 14. 


IS buoyant energy and onward looking 
are marvellous in “ Paul the aged, and 
now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ.” 
Forgetfulness of the past and eager 
anticipation for the future are, we 
sometimes think, the child’s prerogatives. They may 
be ignoble and puerile, or they may be worthy and 
great. All depends on the future to which we look. 
If it be the creation of our fancies, we are babies for 
trusting it. If it be, as Paul’s was, the revelation of 
God’s purposes, we cannot do a wiser thing than 
look, 

The Apostle here is letting us see the secret of his 
own life, and telling us what made him the sort of 
Christian that he was. He counsels wise oblivious- 
ness, wise anticipation, strenuous concentration; and 
these are the things that contribute to success in any 
field of life. Christianity is the perfection of common 
sense. Men become mature Christians by no other 
means than those by which they become good artizans, 


ee ee ee eee pede —_ 


ee 


THE RACE AND THE GOAL, 159 


— 


\ 


ripe scholars, or the like. But the misery is that, 
though people know well enough that they cannot be 
good carpenters, or doctors, or fiddlers without certain 
habits and practices, they seem to fancy that they 
can be good Christians without them. 

So the words of my text may suggest appropriate 
thoughts on this first Sunday of a new year. Let us 
listen, then, to Paul telling us how he came to be the 
sort of Christian man he was. 

I—First, then, I would say, make God’s aim your 
aim. 

Paul distinguishes here between the “mark” and 
the “prize.” He aims at the one for the sake of the 
other. The one is the object of effort; the other is 
the sure result of successful effort. If I may so say, 
the crown hangs on the winning post ; and he who 
touches the goal clutches the garland. 

Then, mark that he regards the aim towards which 

he strains as being-the aim which Christ had in view 
in his conversion. For he says in the preceding 
context, “I labour if that I may lay hold of that for 
which also I have been laid hold of by Jesus Christ.” 
In the words that follow the text he speaks of the 
prize as being the result and purpose of the high 
calling of God “in Christ Jesus.” So then he took 
God’s purpose in calling, and Christ’s purpose in 
redeeming him, as being his great object in life, 
God’s aims and Paul’s were identical. 

What, then, is the aim of God in all that He has 
done for us? The production in us of God-like and 
God-pleasing character. For this suns rise and set; 
for this seasons and times come and go; for this 
sorrows and joys are experienced ; for this hopes and 


160 THE RACE AND THE GOAL. 


fears and loves are kindled. For this all the discipline 
of life is set in motion. For this we were created, 
for this we have been redeemed. For this Jesus — 
Christ lived and suffered and died. For this God’s 
Spirit is poured out upon the world. All else is 
scaffolding; this is the building which it con- 
templates, and when the building is reared the 
scaffolding may be cleared away. God means to 
make us like Himself, and so pleasing to Himself, 
and has no other end in all the varieties of His gifts 
and bestowments but only this, the production of 
character. 

Such is the aim that we should set before us. The 
acceptance of that aim as ours will give nobleness 
and blessedness to our lives, as nothing else will. How 
different all our estimates of the meaning and true 
nature of events would be, if we kept clearly before us 
that their intention was not merely to make us blessed 
and glad, or to make us sorrowful, but that, through 
the blessedness, through the sorrow, through the gift, 
through the withdrawal, through all the variety of 
dealings, the intention was one and the same, to 
mould us to the likeness of our Lord and Saviour! 
There would be fewer mysteries in our lives, we should 
seldomer have to stand in astonishment, in vain 
regret, in miserable and weakening retrospect of 
vanished gifts, and saying to ourselves, “Why has 
this darkness stooped upon my path?” if we looked 
beyond the darkness and the light, to that for which 
both were sent. Some plants require frost to bring 
out their savour, and men need sorrow to test and to 
produce their highest qualities. There would be 
fewer knots in the thread of our lives, and fewer 


THE RACE AND THE GOAL. 161 


mysteries in our experience, if we made God’s aim 
ours, and strove through all variations of condition to 
realize it. 

How different all our estimate of nearer objects and 
aims would be, if once we clearly recognized what we 
are here for! The prostitution of powers to obviously 
unworthy aims and ends is the saddest thing in 
humanity. It is like elephants being set to pick up 
pins ; it is like the lightning being harnessed to carry 
all the gossip and filth of one capital of the world to 
prurient readers in another. Men take these great 
powers which God has given them, and use them 
to make money, to cultivate their intellects, to secure 
the gratification of earthly desires, to make a home 
for themselves here amidst the illusions of time; and 
all the while the great aim, which ought to stand out 
clear and supreme, is forgotten by them. 

There is nothing that needs more careful examina- 
tion by us than our accepted schemes of life for our- 
selves. The roots of our errors mostly lie in these 
beliefs that we take to be axioms and never 
examine into. Let us begin this new year by an 
honest dealing with ourselves, asking ourselves this 
question, “What am I living for?” And if the 
answer, first of all, be, as, of course, it will be—the 
accomplishment of nearer and necessary aims, such 
as the conduct of our business, the cultivating of our 
understandings, the love and peace of our homes, then 
let us press the investigation a little further, and say, 
What then? Suppose I make a fortune, what then ? 
Suppose I get the position I am striving for, what 
then? Suppose I cultivate my understanding and win 
the knowledge that I am nobly striving after, what 
11 


162 THE RACE AND THE GOAL. 


then? Let us not cease to ask the question, until 
we can say, “Thy aim, O Lord, is my aim, and I press 
toward the mark,” the only mark which will make 
life noble, elastic, stable, and blessed, that I “ may be 
found in Christ, not having mine own righteousness, 
but that which is of God by faith.” For this we have 
all been made, guided, redeemed. If we carry this 
treasure out of life we shall carry all that is worth 
carrying. If we fail in this we fail altogether, what- 
ever be our so-called success. There is one mark, one 
only, and every arrow that does not hit that target is 
wasted and spent in vain. 

II.—Secondly, let me say, concentrate all effort on 
this one aim. 

“This one thing I do,” says the Apostle, “I press 
toward the mark.” That aim is the one which God 
has in view in all circumstances and arrangements. 
Therefore, obviously, it is one which may be pursued 
in all of these, and may be sought whatsoever we 
are doing. All occupations, except only sin, are 
consistent with this highest aim. It needs not that 
we should seek any remote or cloistered form of 
life, nor shear off any legitimate and common 
interests, but in them all we may be seeking for 
the one thing, the moulding of our characters into 
the shapes that are pleasing to Him. “One thing 
have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after, that 
I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days 
of my life”; wherever the outward days of my life 
may be passed. Whatever we are doing, in business, 
in shop, at a study table, in the kitchen, in the 
nursery, by the road, in the house, we may still have 
the supreme aim in view, that from all our work 


THE RACE AND THE GOAL. 165 


_ there may come growth in character and in likeness 
to Jesus Christ. 

Only, to keep this supreme aim clear, there will be 
required far more frequent and resolute effort for what 
the old mystics used to call “recollection” than we 
are accustomed to put forth. It is hard, amidst the 
din of business, and whilst yielding to other lower, 
legitimate impulses and motives, to set this supreme 
one high above them all. But it is possible, if only 
we will do two things, keep ourselves close to God, 
and be prepared to surrender much, laying our own 
wills, our own fancies, purposes, eager hopes and plans 
in His hands, and asking Him to help us, that we 
may never lose sight of the harbour light, because of 
any tossing waves that rise between us and it, nor 
may ever be so swallowed up in ends, which are only 
means after all, as to lose sight of the only end which 
is an end in itself. But for the attainment of this 
aim in any measure, the concentration of all our 
powers upon it is absolutely needful. If you want to 
bore a hole you take a sharp point; you can do 
nothing with a blunt one. Every flight of wild ducks 
in the sky will tell you the form that is most likely 
to secure the maximum of motion with the minimum 
of effort. The wedge is that which pierces through 
all the loosely-compacted textures against which it 
is pressed. Roman strategy forced the way of the 
legion through loose-ordered ranks of barbarian foes 
by arraying it in that wedgelike form. So we, if 
we are to advance, must gather ourselves together 
and put a point upon our lives by compaction and 
concentration of effort and energy on the one purpose. 
The conquering word is, “ This yne thing I do.” The 

11* 


164 THE RACE AND THE GOAL, 


difference between the amateur and the artist 


is that the one pursues an art by spurts, as a 


parergon—a thing that is done in the intervals of 
other occupations—and that the other makes it his 
life’s business. There are a great many amateur 
Christians amongst us, who pursue the Christian life 
by fits and starts. If you want to be a Christian 
after God’s pattern—and unless you are you are 
scarcely a Christian at all—you have to make it your 
business, to give the same attention, the same concen- 
tration, the same unwavering energy to it, which you 
do to your trade. The man of one book, the man of 
one idea, the man of one aim is the formidable and 
the successful man. People will call you a fanatic; 
never mind. Better be a fanatic and get what you 
aim at, which is the highest thing, than be so broad 
that, like a stream spreading itself out over miles of 
mud, there is no scour in it anywhere, no current, and 
therefore stagnation and death. Gather yourselves 
together, and, amidst all side issues and nearer aims, 
keep this in view as the aim to which all are to 
be subservient—that, “whether I eat or drink, or 
whatsoever I do, I may do all to the glory of God.” 
Let sorrow and joy, trade and profession, study and 
business, house and wife and children and all home 
joys, be the means by which you may become like 
the Master who has died for this end, that we may 
become partakers of His holiness. 

III.—Pursue this end with a wise forgetfulness. 

“Forgetting the things that are behind.” The art 
of forgetting has much to do with the blessedness and 
power of every life. Of course, when the Apostle says 


‘Forgetting the things that are behind,” he is think« 


THE RACE AND THE GOAL, 165 


ing of the runner, who has no time to cast his eye 
over his shoulder to mark the steps already trod. 
He does not mean, of course, to tell us that we are 
so to cultivate obliviousness as to let God’s mercies 
to us “lie, forgotten in unthankfulness, or without 
praises die.” Nor does he mean to tell us that we are 
to deny ourselves the solace of remembering the 
mercies which may, perhaps, have gone from us. 
Memory may be like the calm radiance that fills the 
western sky from a sun that has set, sad and yet 
sweet, melancholy and lovely. But he means that 
we should so forget as, by the oblivion, to strengthen 
our concentration. 

So I would say, let us remember, and yet forget, 
our past failures and faults. Let us remember them 
in order that the remembrance may cultivate in usa 
wise chastening of our self-confidence. Let us re- 
member where we were foiled, in order that we may 
be the more careful of that place hereafter. If we 
know that upon any road we fell into ambushes, “ not 
once nor twice,” like the old king of Israel, we should 
guard ourselves against passing by that road again. 
He who has not learned, by the memory of his past 
failures, humility and wise government of his life, and 
wise avoidance of places where he is weak, is an incur- 
able fool. 

But let us forget our failures, in so far as these 
might paralyze our hopes, or make us fancy that 
future success is impossible where past failures frown. 
Ebenezer was a field of defeat before it rang with the 
hymns of victory. And there is no place in your 
past life where you have been shamefully baffled and 
beaten, but there, and in that, you may yet be victori- 


166 |THE RACE AND THE GOAL. 


ous. Never let the past limit your hopes of the pos- 
sibilities; nor your confidence in the certainties and 
victories, of the future. And if ever you are tempted 
to say to yourselves, “I have tried it so often, and so 
often failed, that it is no use trying any more; I am 
beaten and I throw up the sponge,” remember Paul’s 
wise exhortation, and “ forgetting the things that are 
behind . . . press toward the mark.” 

In like manner I would say, remember and yet 
forget past successes and achievements. Remember 
them for thankfulness, remember them for hope, 
remember them for counsel and instruction, but forget 
them when they tend, as all that we accomplish does 
tend, to make us fancy that little more remains to be — 
done; and forget them when they tend, as all 
that we accomplish ever does tend, to make us 
think that such and such things are our line, and of 
other virtues and graces and achievements of culture 
and of character, that these are not our line, and not 
to be won by us. 

“Qur line!” Astronomers take a thin thread from 
a spider's web and stretch it across their object-glasses 
to measure stellar magnitudes. Just as is the spider's 
line in comparison with the whole shining surface of 
the sun across which it is stretched, so is what we 
have already attained to the boundless might and 
glory of that to which we may come. Nothing short 
of the full measure of the likeness of Jesus Christ is 
the measure of our possibilities. 

There is a mannerism in Christian life, as there is 
in everything else, which is to be avoided, if we would 
grow into perfection. There was a great artist in a 
past century who never could paint a picture without 


THE RACE AND THE GOAL. 167 


a brown tree in the foreground. We have all our 
“brown trees,” which we think we can do well, 
and these limit our ambition. to secure other gifts 
which God is ready to bestow upon us. So, “forget 
the things that are behind.” Cultivate a wise oblivi- 
ousness of past sorrows, past joys, past failures, past 
gifts, past achievements, in so far as these might limit 
the audacity of your hopes and the energy of your 
efforts. 

IV.—So, lastly, pursue the aim with a wise, eager 
reaching forward. 

The Apostle employs a graphic word here, which 
is only very partially expressed by that “reach- 
ing forth.” It contains a condensed picture which 
it is scarcely possible to put into any one expres- 
sion. “Reaching out over” is the full though 
clumsy rendering of the word; and it gives us the 
picture of the runner with his whole body thrown 
forward, his hand extended, and his eye reaching 
even further than his hand, in eager anticipation 
of the mark and the prize. So we are to live, 
with continual reaching out of confidence, clear re- 
cognition, and eager desire to make the unattained 
our own. 

What is that which gives an element of noble- 
ness to the lives of great idealists, whether they 
be poets, artists, students, thinkers, or what not ? 
Mainly this, that they see the unattained burning 
ever so clearly before them that all the attained 
seems as nothing in their eyes. And so life is 
saved from commonplace, is happily stung into fresh 
effort, is redeemed from flagging, monotony, and 
weariness, 


168 THE RACE AND THE GOAL. 


The measure of our attainments may be fairly 
estimated by the extent to which the unattained is 
clear in our sight. A man down in the valley 
sees the nearer shoulder of the hill, and he thinks 
it the top. Reaching the shoulder he sees all 
the heights that lie beyond rising above him. 
Endeavour is better than success. It is more to 
see the Alpine heights yet unscaled than it is to 
have risen so far as we have done. They who 
thus have a boundless future before them have an 
endless source of inspiration, of energy, of buoyancy 
granted to them. 

No man has such an absolutely boundless vision of 
the future which may be his, as we have if we are 
Christian people, as we ought to be. Only we can 
thus look forward. For all others a blank wall 
stretches at the end of life, against which hopes, 
when they strike, fall back stunned and dead. But 
for us the wall may be overleaped, and, living by the 
energy of a boundless hope, we, and only we, can lay 
ourselves down to die, and say then, “ Reaching forth 
unto the things that are before.” 

So, dear friends, make God’s aim your aim; con- 
centrate your life’s efforts upon it; pursue it with a 
wise forgetfulness; pursue it with an eager confidence 
of anticipation that shall not be put to shame. 
Remember that God reaches His aim for you by 
giving to you Jesus Christ, and that you can only 
reach it by accepting the Christ who is given, and 
being found in Him. Then the years will take away 
nothing from us which it is not gain to lose. They 
will neither weaken our energy nor flatten our hopes 
nor dim our confidence, and at the last we shall reach 


THE RACE AND THE GOAL. 169 


the mark, and, as we touch it, we shall find dropping 
on our surprised and humble heads the crown of life 
which they receive who have so run, not as uncertainly, 
but doing this one thing, pressing towards the mark 
for the prize, 


XVII. 
God’s Scrutiny Longed For. 


“SmAnon me, O God, and know my heart : try me, and know my 
thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead 
me in the way everlasting.” —PsaLM cxxxix, 23, 24. 


HIS psalm begins with perhaps the 
grandest contemplation of the Divine 
Omniscience that was ever put into 

KWAY] words. It is easy to pour out platitudes 

—* upon such a subject, but the Psalmist 

does not content himself with generalities. He 

gathers all the rays, as it were, into one burning 
point, and focusses them upon himself. “O Lord! 

Thou hast searched me, and known me.” All the 

more remarkable, then, is it that the psalm should 

end with asking God to do what it began with 
declaring that He does. He knows us each, alto- 
gether—whether we like it or not; whether we try 
to hinder it or not; whether we remember it or 
not. Singular, therefore, is it to find this prayer as 
the very climax of all the Psalmist’s contempla- 
tion. The “searching” which was spoken of at the 
beginning is not so profound or effective as that 
which is desired at the end. It is a process which 
has for its issue the cleansing of all the evil that 
is beheld. The prayer of the text is, in fact, the 


GOD'S SCRUTINY LONGED FOR. 171 


yearning of a devout soul for purity. I simply wish 
to consider the series of petitions here, in the hope 
that we may catch something of their spirit, and 
that some faint echo of them may sound in our 
desires. My purpose, then, will be best accomplished 
if I follow the words of the text, and look at these 
petitions in the order in which they stand. 

I—Note, then, first, the longing for the searching of 
God’s eye. 

Now, the word which is here rendered “search ” is 
a very emphatic and picturesque one. It means to 
dig deep. God is prayed, as it were, to make a section 
into the Psalmist, and lay bare his inmost nature, as 
men do in a railway cutting, layer after layer, going ever 
deeper down till the bed-rock is reached. “Search 
me ”—dig into me, bring the deep-lying parts to light 
—‘“and know my heart”; the centre of my person- 
ality, my inmost self. 

That is the prayer, not of fancied fitness to stand 
investigation, but of lowly acknowledgment. In other 
words, itis really a form of confession. “Search me. 
I know Thou wilt find evil, but still—search me!” It 
seems to me that there are two main ideas in this 
petition, on each of which I touch briefly. 

One is, that it is a glad recognition of a fact which 
is very terrible to many hearts. The conception of 
God as “knowing me altogether,’ down to the very 
roots of my being, is either the most blessed or the 
most unwelcome thought, according to my conception 
of what His heart to me is. If I think of Him, as so 
many of us do, as simply an “austere man” who 
“gathers where he did not straw,” and reaps where he 
did not sow; if my thought of God is mainly that of 


172 GOD'S SCRUTINY LONGED FOR. 


an investigator and a judge, with pure eyes and rigid 
judgment, then I shall be more ignorant of myself, 
and more confident in myself, than the most of men 
are when they bethink themselves, if I do not feel 
that I shrink up like a sensitive plant’s leaf when a 
finger touches it, and would fain curl myself together, 
and hide from His eye something that I know lurks 
and poisons, at the centre of my being. 

The gaoler’s eye at the slit in the wall of the soli- 
tary prisoner’s cell is a constant terror to the man 
who knows that it may be upon him at every moment, 
and does not know where the eyehole is, or when the 
merciless eye may be at it. But if we love one another, 
we do not shrink from opening out our inward base- 
ness to each other. We can venture to tell those 
that are dear to us, as our own hearts, the things 
that lie in our own hearts, and make them black 
and ugly in all eyes but love's; or, if we cannot 
venture to do it wholly, at all events we do it more 
fully, and more willingly, and with more of something 
that is almost pleasure in the very act of confession,_ 
in proportion as we are bound by the sacred ties of 
love to the recipient of the confession. There is a joy, 
and a blessedness deeper than joy, in discovering our- 
selves, even our unworthy selves, when we know that 
the eye that looks is a loving eye. 

If, then, we have rightly conceived of our relation 
to Him, that infinite Lover of all our hearts, who looks 
“with other eyes than ours, and makes allowance for 
us all,” there will be a certain blessedness, almost like 
joy, in turning ourselves inside out before Him; and 
in feeling that every corner of our hearts lies naked 
and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have 


/ 


GOD'S SCRUTINY LONGED FOR. 173 


todo. “Search me, O God,” is the voice of confident 
love, which is sure of the love that contemplates the 
sinner. 

And for us Christian people, to whom all these 
attributes of Deity are gathered together and brought 
very near our hearts and our experiences in the Person 
of our brother Christ, the thought of such knowledge 
of us becomes still more blessed. Just as the Apostle, 
who was conscious of many sins, could say to his 
Master, not in petulance, but in deeply-moved confi- 
dence, “Thou knowest all things! Why dost Thou 
ask me questions? Thou knowest all things; Thou 
knowest, notwithstanding my denials, that I love Thee,” 
so may we turn to Jesus Christ, who knows what is in 
men, and who knows each man, and be sure that the 
eye which looks upon our unworthiness pities our 
sinfulness, and is ready to bear it all away. There is 
a deeper gladness in pouring out our hearts to our 
loving Lord than in locking them, in sullen silence, 
with the vain conceit that we thereby hide ourselves 
from Him. Make a clean breast of your evil, and you 
will find that the act has in it a blessedness unique 
and poignant. “Pour out your hearts before Him, O 
ye people, God is a refuge for us.” 

This prayer is also an expression of absolute will- 
ingness to submit to the searching process. God is 
represented in my text as seeking into the secrets of a 
man’s heart, not that God may know, but that the 
man may know. By His spirit He will come into the 
innermost corners of our nature, if this prayer is a 
real expression of our desire. And there the illumi- 
nation of His presence will flash light into all the 
dark corners of our experience and of our personality 


174 GOD'S SCRUTINY LONGED FOR. 


We. cannot afford to be in ignorance of these. Pes- 
tilence lurks in the unventilated, unlighted, un- 
cleansed corners of a neglected nature. It is only on 
condition of the light of God’s convincing spirit being 
cast into every corner of our being that we shall be 
able to overcome and annihilate the creeping swarms 
of microscopic sins that are there, minute, but mighty 
in their myriads to destroy a man’s soul. “Search 
me” is the expression of a penitence that knows itself 
to be full of evil, that does not know all the evil 
of which it is full, that needs enlightenment, that 
desires deliverance, that is sure of the love that 
looks, and that so spreads itself, as a bleacher 
spreads some piece of stained cloth in the gracious 
sunshine and sprinkles it with the pure water of 
heaven, that all the stains may melt away. 

It is useless to ask God to search us if we lock our 
hearts against His searching. The mere natural 
exercise, if I may so say, of the Divine attribute of 
Omniscience we cannot hinder. He knows us thereby 
altogether, whether we like it or not; but the “search- 
ing” 
without our consent. We have to confess our sins 
unto the Lord, ere this kind of Divine scrutiny can 
be brought to bear. By His natural Omniscience, 
He knows them altogether, but the seeing which is 
preparatory to destroying them depends on our will- 
ingness to submit ourselves to the often painful process 
by which He drags our sins to light. 

Do you want Him to come and search your hearts, 
and tell you in your spirits what He has found there ? 
Do you desire to know your hidden evil? Then keep 
close to Him, and tell Him what the sin is which you 


of my text is one which He cannot put in force 


GOD'S SCRUTINY LONGED FoR. 175 


— oa 


know to be sin; and ask Him to show you what the 
sins are which, as yet, you have not grown up to the 
height of understanding and acknowledging. 

Il —Next, there follows the longing for the Divine 
testing of our thoughts. 

Now you will have observed, I suppose, that in the 
second clause of my text, “try me, and know my 
thoughts,” the result of the investigation is somewhat 
different from that of the previous clause. The 
“searching” issued in a Divine knowledge of the 
heart; the “trying,” or testing, issues in a Divine 
knowledge of the thoughts. The distinction between 
these two, in the Biblical use of the expression, is not 
precisely the same as in our modern popular speech. 
We are accustomed to talk of the heart as being the 
seat of emotions, affections, feelings, whereas we rele- 
gate thoughts to the head. But Scripture does not 
quite take that metaphorical view. In it the heart is 
the centre of personal being, and out of it there come, 
not only emotions and loves, but “thoughts and 
intents.” The difference, then, between these two, 
“heart” and “thoughts,” is this, the one is the work- 
shop and the other is the product. The heart is the 
place where the thoughts are elaborated. So you see 
the process of the Psalmist’s prayer is from the centre 
a little outwards, first the inmost self, and then the 
“ thoughts,” meaning thereby the whole web of acti- 
_ vities, both intellectual and emotional, of which the 
heart, in his sense of the word, is the seat and source, 

In like manner as the field of investigation is some- 
what shifted in the second petition, so the manner of 
investigation is correspondingly different. “Search” 
is the Divine scrutiny of the inner man by the eye; 


176 GOD'S SCRUTINY LONGED FOR. 


“test” is the trial, as metals are proved by a fiery 
furnace. 

So, then, the innermost man is searched by the 
Divine knowledge, and the thoughts which the inner- 
most man produces are tested by the Divine provi- 
dence. And this second petition is for a trial by facts, 
by external agencies, of the true nature and character 
of our purposes, desires, designs, intentions, as well 
as of our affections and loves and joys. That is to 
say, this second prayer submits absolutely to any 
discipline, fiery and fierce and bitter, by which the 
true character of a man’s activities may be made 
clear to himself. Oh! it is a prayer easily offered; 
hard to stand by. It is a prayer often answered, in 
ways that drive us almost to despair. It means, Do 
anything with me, put me into any seven-fold heated 
furnace of sorrow, do anything that will melt my 
hardness, and run off my dross, which Thy great ladle 
will then skim away, that the surface may be clear, 
and the substance without alloy. 

Do you pray that prayer, brother, knowing all that 
it means, and being willing to take the answer in 
forms that may rack your heart, and sadden your 
whole lives? If you are wise, you will. Better to go 
crippled into life than, having two hands or two feet, 
to be cast into hell fire! Better to be saved, though 
maimed, than to be entire and lost. 

“Try me.” It is an awful prayer. Let us not offer 
it lightly, or unadvisedly. If we are wise it will be 
our inmost desire. And when the answer comes, and 
sorrows fall, do not let us murmur, do not let us kick, 
do not let us wonder, but let us say, “Thou art a God 
that hearest prayer,’ and “I will glorify God in the 


GOD'S SCRUTINY LONGED FOR. 177 


fires.” Then “the trial of your faith being much 
more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it 
be tried with fire, shall be found unto praise and 
honour and glory.” 

IIl.—The next petition of my text is a longing for 
the casting out of evil. 

“See if there be any wicked way in me.” Now, 
that if is not the “if” of doubt whether any such 
“way ” is in the man, but it is the “if” of conscious- 
ness that there are such, though what they are he 
may not clearly discern. And so, it is the “if” of 
humility—knowing that he is not justified because he 
knows nothing against himself—and not the “if” of 
presumption. 

I have only time to observe here, in a word or two, 
what would well deserve more expanded treatment, 
and that is, the very striking and significant expres- 
sion here employed for this evil way which the Psalmist 
desires to be detected, that it may be cast out. The 
word rendered “ wicked ”—or, more properly, wicked- 
ness—is literally “forced labour,’ which was, in old 
times, and still is in some countries, laid upon the 
inhabitants at the command of authority; and then, 
because forced labour is grievous labour, it comes to 
mean sorrow. So the “way of wickedness” that the 
Psalmist feels is in him is a way of compulsory 
service, and a way that leads to sorrow. That is to 
say, all sin is slavery, and all sin leads to a bitter and 
a bad end, and its fruit is death. And so, because 
he feels that his better self is in bondage, and 
shudderingly apprehends that the course which he 
pursues can only end in bitterness and misery, he 
turns to God and asks Him that He would enlighten 

12 


~ , 


178 GOD'S SCRUTINY LONGED FOR. 


him as to what these fatal courses are. “See if there 
be any way of wickedness in me,” beause he is quite 
sure that the evil which God sees God will help him 
to overcome. - 

Ah, friends, we all have such ways deeply lodged 
within us, and we do not always know that we 
have ; but if we will turn ourselves to Him, He will 
prevent our condemning ourselves in things that we 
allow ; and, by increasing the sensitiveness of our con- 
sciences, He will teach us that many things which 
we did not know to be wrong are harmful. 

As soon as we learn that they are, He will help us 
to cast them out. God has nothing to do with our 
evil but to fight against it. Be sure of this, that 
whatsoever évil in us He thus searches and shows us, 
is shown us that we may fling it from us. He goes 
down into the cellars of our hearts, with the candle of 
His Spirit in His hand, in order that He may lay hold 
of all the explosives there, and, having drenched them 
so that they shall not catch fire, may cast them clean 
out, so that they may not blow us to destruction. 

IV.—The last petition of my text is for guidance 
in “ the everlasting way.” 

The “ways of wickedness” are in us; the “way 
everlasting” we need to be led into. That is to say, 


naturally, we incline to evil; it must be the Divine — 
hand and the Divine Spirit that lead our feet in the 


paths of righteousness. When we ask Him to 
“guide us in the way everlasting,” we ask that we 
may know what is duty, and that we may incline to 
do it. And He answers it by the gift of His Divine 
Spirit, by the quickening of our consciences, by 
bringing nearer to our hearts the great Example who 


GOD'S SCRUTINY LONGED FOB. 179 


has left us His footsteps as a legacy that we may 
tread in them. 

Whosoever walks in Christ’s footsteps is walking 
in “the way everlasting.” For that path is rightly so 
named which leads to eternal blessedness. It is ever- 
lasting, too, inasmuch ss nothing of human effort or 
work abides except that which is in conformity with 
the will of God, and inasmuch as it, and it alone, is 
not broken short off by death, but runs, borne upon 
one mighty arch that spans the gorge, clean across 
the black abyss, and continues straight on in the 
same course, only with a swifter upward gradient, 
through all the ages of eternity. The man who here 
has lived for God will live yonder as he has lived 
here, only more completely and more joyously for 
ever. “A highway shall be there, and a way, and the 
ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion 
with songs, and everlasting joy upon their heads.” 


Gare 


12” 


XVIII. 
Christ's Traders. 


“ AND he called his ten servants, and delivered them ten pounds, 
and said unto them, Occupy till I come.”"—LUKE xix. 13. 


~7j [E Evangelist is careful to note the 
1 occasion for this remarkable parable. 
It was spoken in order to damp down 
the excited hopes of Christ’s followers 

— and of the crowd, occasioned by our 
Lord’s final journey to Jerusalem. They “thought 
that the Kingdom of God should immediately appear” ; 
that at last this Messiah was about to make a dash 
for temporal sovereignty, such as would meet their 
desires. He tells them this story which so signifi- 
cantly, though in veiled fashion, yet very clearly toa 
seeing eye, asserts His dignity, foretells His departure, 
hints at the long period of His absence, and prescribes 
the tasks of His servants. 

“A certain nobleman,” or, as the word literally 
rendered would be, a “ well-born man ”—there speaks 
the veiled consciousness of Divine Sonship—* went 
into a far country,” therefore on a long journey, “to 
receive for himself a kingdom,” as successive members 
of the Herod family had been accustomed to do, going 
to Rome, to get confirmation of their authority, “and 


CHRIST’S TRADERS. 181 


to return.” And he left behind him, says the nar- 
rative, two sets of people, servants to work and 
rebellious citizens. 

I have nothing to do with the latter class this 
morning, but I wish to turn to the imagery of my task 
as suggesting the work of the servants whilst the 
Master is gone. 

_ Now we are to observe that the word “occupy,” in 
our Authorized Version, is by no means—now, at all 
events—an adequate representation of the original. A 
compound form of the same word is rightly rendered 
in the fifteenth verse, “gain by trading”; and un- 
questionably the Revised Version gives the true 
meaning when, instead of “occupy,” it reads “trade 
ye herewith till I come.” The metaphor, then, is that 
of men to whom has been entrusted a capital not their 
own, and who are sent to do their best with it. 

I.—Note, then, first, the stock-in-trade. 

Now you will remember that there is another parable, 
so singularly like this one that superficial readers, and 
some readers who ought not to have been superficial, 
have gone the length of supposing that the two are 
simply versions of one.~ I mean the parable of the 
pounds in Matthew’s Gospel. But there are, along with 
the resemblances of the two, several important points 
of difference, which enter into the very structure and 
significance of each, and contain the key to their 
interpretation. The two points of difference are the 
magnitude of the gift bestowed, and the fact that in 
the one parable the gift varies in each case, and in 
the other is identical in all. In our story the men get 
a pound a piece; in the other story they get a varying 
number of talents, beginning with ten, and tapering 


182 CHRIST'S TRADERS. 


down to one. Now, then, these two points, the small- 
ness of the stock and its uniformity, are essential 
features in the significance of this parable. 

What is there that all Christian men have in 
common? The answer may be, as often has been 
supposed, salvation, grace, or the like; but it is only 
very partially true that all Christian men have an 
equal measure of such gifts, for these vary indefinitely, 
according to the faith and receptivity of the possessor. 
But there is something which all Christian people have 
equally, though they do not all make the same use of 
it, and that is the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the message 
of salvation, the great truths of His mission, character, 
and work. And that, as I take it—the Word, or, to 
use a more frequent phrase, the Gospel—is the “pound” 
which every real Christian has equally. Remember 
Paul’s word, which is only another phase of the 
same thought, where he speaks about “that good 
deposit committed to our trust.” And remember also 
his frequent expressions, such as “I was put in trust 
of the Gospel,” “the Gospel was committed to my 
charge,” as to a steward, and I think you will see the 
meaning of the emblem. All Christians have the 
same gift committed to their charge. 

But then, is it not very strange that, if that be at 
all the significance of the figure, our Lord should 
select a very small amount as representing it? A 
talent, whether it was a talent. of gold or of silver— 
which may be questionable—was an immense sum. 
A pound was worth about six pounds of our English 
money, a very small amount for a man to set up in 
business with; or for an aspirant to a throne to give 
to his servants. Pretenders to crowns not yet won 


CHRIST’S TRADERS. 183 


are not usually very flush of money, and the smallness 
of the gift may be part of the propriety of the 
narrative. 

But how can we think that Jesus Christ would 
have represented the gift of His Word as a little stock- 
in-trade with which to go out? Well! fling yourselt 
back to the time. Think of these forlorn men, left by 
their .Master, and standing there face to face with an 
antagonistic world, with its treasures of poetry, 
philosophy, eloquence, literature, with its banded 
antagonisms, with its dead weight of indifference, 
What have they to meet all these with? One 
unlettered message, “to the Jews a stumbling-block, 
and to the Greeks foolishness.” By the side of the 
wealth that was stored in that wonderful literature of 
Greece, what was the disciples’ stock-in-trade? 
Nothing but one poor word; and with that word they 
shook the world. The “pound,” small as it seemed 
was more than all the wealth hived in the treasure- 
houses of the poets and orators and philosophers of 
Greece, and than the might of Rome. It was a little 
gift, but it was sufficient. The gladiator was sent into 
the arena to face the lions unarmed, and with a poor 
rod in his hand, but he conquered. The foolishness 
of preaching was more than a match for the gathered 
wisdom of the world. 

The servants had but their pound; they had to be 
contented, therefore, with dealing in a very small way. 
Little economies, and hard work, and slow savings had 

_ to be the rule of their trade. There are men in Man- 
chester to-day who began with the traditional half- 
crown, and have made it the basis of a large fortune. 
Christ sent His Church into the world with a similar 


184 CHRIST’S TRADERS. 


a ee ee ee 


slender endowment, judged from the world’s point of 
view. All of us have that gift. Let us see that we 
are not ashamed of it. David’s five smooth stones 
out of the brook-bed, lodged in a rude leather sling, 
with a bit of string tied at the two ends of it, are fit 
to whiz into the forehead of any Goliath and lay him 


flat upon the plain. The Lord went to seek a king- 


dom, and all that He had to leave to His servants was 
one poor pound. That is their stock-in-trade. 

II.—Now, secondly, notice the trading. 

“Trade ye: herewith.” That is a distinct and 
definite command. It covers, no doubt, the whole 
area of life, and goes down to its depths as well. In 
this trading is, I suppose, included the whole of the 


outward life, which is to be shaped by the principles — 


and motives contained in the message of the Gospel. 
Thus to live is our business in the world. These men 
got their gift, not only to live upon it—of course they 
had to do that too—but to do the best they could 
with it by their faithfulness and their diligence. It re- 
mains for ever true that wheresoever men do honestly 
and conscientiously, and with a fixed and continuous 
determination; apply the principles of Christianity to 
their daily life, in great or small things, their grasp of 
the principles and motives is increased, and the 
“pound” becomes more in their hands, though they 
add nothing to it, but only penetrate deeper into its 
significance and its value. 

But whilst thus the Christian life, influenced and 
dominated by Christian motives and principles drawn 
from the Gospel, is the general meaning of this trad- 


ing, there is one special direction in which, as I think, © 


the stress of the parable is meant to go, and that is, 


CHRIST’S TRADERS. 185 


the diffusion by the servants of the King of the 
message of His love. I take it that, whilst the whole 
sweep of Christian life may be included in the com- 
mandment, manifestly the main idea that lies in it 
is—spread the Word which you have received, and 
become apostles and missionaries of the truth that 
has been entrusted to your charge. This trading is 
laid as an obligation upon all Christians, by the fact 
of possession, by the consideration of the purpose for 
which the pound is given, and by the distinct and 
definite command of the Lord Himself. 

It is laid upon us as an obligation by the fact of pos- 
session. That is true about all our gifts. It is most 
true about all our convictions. It is truest of all 
about our religious convictions. For a man may have 
many opinions which bring with them no obligation 
to diffuse them, and there may be many thoughts and 
beliefs in my heart which do not knock at the door of 
my lips and demand expression in proportion to the 
depth of my own personal conviction. But no man, 
who really has, in his heart, lodged deep and hidden, 
the Word of God, can be dumb. “Thy Word have 1 
hid in my heart” says the Psalmist; and then again, 
he says, “I have not hid Thy righteousness from 
before the great congregation.” If there is a deep 
personal possession of that Gospel for ourselves, there 
cannot fail to result therefrom the sense of obligation, 
and of impulse and necessity to impart it. The 
“pound” burns a hole in your pockets, according to 
the old saying, unless you take it out and trade with 
it. And I, for my part, venture to say that I look, if 
not with suspicion, at least with profound conviction 
of its shallowness, at the Christianity of any man who 


186 CHRIST'S TRADERS. 


feels nothing of the obligation which it lays upon him 
to communicate it to others. 

The obligation results from the very purpose of the 
gift. The king gave these men their pound each, not 
that they might live upon it, but that, living upon it, 
their life and their stock might both be used for the 
increase of his wealth. You very much mistake your 
own importance in the world, and in Christ’s King- 
dom, if you think that you were saved—if you are 
saved—only in order that you might be safe. You 
were saved for that, but also in order that, through 
you, other people might be saved. 


Now, Christians, have you realized that? And do - 


you work it out in your life? The purpose of the 
pound is trading; and you will not be acquitted of 
unfaithfulness and embezzlement if, when the audit 
day comes, you say, “The pound? the Gospel? Oh! 
I lived upon it.” Yes! but did you use the life that 
you drew from it for the purpose of spreading that 
great Name? 

The obligation rises from the distinct commands of 
the Master, which commandments are not grievous. 
Oh! brethren, if we had more deeply communed with 
the Lord who is love, we should better understand 
that His commandments, which are the expressions of 
His will, are prerogatives and privileges. There are 


many of us, I am sure, who think, “Well! It is a 


Christian man’s duty to do sometfing for the spread 
of the Gospel. It is a heavy burden. I wish I could 
diminish it. I will do as little of it as is consistent 
with a reputable position, and as little as my con- 
science will let me off with”! “To me, who am less 
than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I 


OE ——— 


CHRIST’S TRADERS. > 187 


_ should preach amongst the Gentiles the unsearchable 
riches of Christ.” It is privilege, honour, may be a 
source of joy, and will be a source cf glory in the 
heavens, if we faithfully do the work. 

The metaphor on which I am now speaking sug- 
gests also the way in which the work has to be done. 
Make a business of it. That is one plain conclusion 
from the imagery of our text. If once we could get 
it into our heads and consciences that it is quite as 
much our business in life to communicate the Gospel 
of Jesus Christ as it is to go to our daily occupation, 
the whole Church and the world would be blessed 
and revolutionized. Make a business of it. There 
are here and there men who do recognize this as their 
duty. Ido not mean men like me, who make a pro- 
fession of it, nor others who make a trade of it. That 
is entirely a different thing. I mean men who may 
be merchants, or shopkeepers, women who may be in 
any circumstance of life, but who recognize that the 
main thing for which they are in the world is the 
fuller reception of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, in all 
its quickening and impelling power, into their own 
natures ; and consequently the completer raying out 
of it from themselves into a darkened world. Make a 
business of it, realize it as your task. The Church 
has been playing at it, and a great many of us have 
not even been doing that much. 

We need a far more serious devotion of ourselves to 
the task than characterizes most of us. Bring the 
common virtues and qualities, which you know to be 
essential to success in any walk of life to bear upon 
this your highest Christian duty—common sense, 
adaptation of means to ends, persistence, diligence, 


188 CHRIST’S TRADERS. 


looking out for opportunities to open new markets; 
and all the other qualities which you honour so highly 
in Portland Street and Mosley Street. You have 
another region in which they may profitably be ap- 
plied, and that is, the doing of Christ’s work in the 
world, But if you have such a huge millwheel to 
drive that the sluice and the lade need to be of such 
dimensions that they divert all the water from the 
stream, except one little miserable trickle amongst 
the stones, no wonder that the progress of the 
Christian Church, in the hands of such unfaithful 
servants, is the miserably slow thing that it is. Make 
your business the spread of Christ’s name, and do it 
as you do your business. 

III.—Lastly, note the audit. 

“Till I come,” or, as another reading has it, more 
difficult but very significant, “whilst I am coming”; 
as if the coming of the Lord was in progress all through 
the ages of His absence, and He was drawing ever 
nearer and nearer. Which of these two may be the 
accurate reading does not much affect my present 
purpose. The point is that there comes a time when 
the head of the concern goes round to all the branch 
agencies and gets the books, and sees what has been 
done in his absence, and allots results accordingly. 

Mark that the servants tell their own story. That 
is a solemn thought that, however we may cover up our 


idleness to-day, and whatever excuses we may have for - 


not doing the Master’s will, in the matter of diffusing 
His name throughout the world, there comes a time 
when all these will melt away, and the man himself will 
accurately know and accurately narrate what his life 
has really been, and what the upshot of it all has 


CHRIST’S TRADERS. 189 


come to. “So, then, every one of us shall give 
account of himself to God.” 

Note that there turn out to be varieties in the 
profits. The one pound makes ten pounds, five 
pounds, no pounds. If these varieties in profits 
(which, I suppose, may be put into modern language 
as varying measures of what is so often misunderstood 
and sought in questionable ways—success) have 
resulted from varying circumstances, over which the 
man has no control, they will not be taken into 
account in the final award. What Christ rewards is 
not success, but diligence. And if we are set to work 
in a little corner, the man who fills half a continent 
with his fame, and whose eloquence and spiritual 
power has revivified a dying Church or generation, 
will get no more than us little men in the far-off 
comers who did their best where God had put them. 
It is not variety of results, except in so far as that 
vafiety is determined by variety of consecration and 
diligence, that makes a variation in the issue. But in 
so far as there is this variety in diligence, it does 
make a difference. I wish that belief held a larger 
place than it does in the minds and in the preaching 
of the Church of this day. We are far too much 
accustomed to think of the salvation of the soul and 
the reward of a future life as being one dead level, 
whereas, in fact, it is full of inequalities of height, and 
some peaks tower above the lower ones. There is 
-such a thing as salvation by fire, and such a thing 
as salvation in fulness. It is not all the same, bre- 
thren, and it will not be all the same for you and 
me in that future life, whether we have traded with 
our pound or hidden it in a napkin; and whether 


190 CHRIST’S TRADERS. 


our diligence has made our pound into ten or only 
into five. 

What may be hidden beneath the wonderful words 
of the promise, with which the audit closes, is more 
than any of us can guess. “Have thou authority 
over ten cities.” At all events, that means an all but 
infinitely higher sphere and form of service granted to 
the diligent traders. Here, if I might stick by the 
metaphors of my text, we keep a little shop in a back 
street with a very small stock-in-trade in the little 
window, and very slender profits in the till Yonder 
we shall be His viceroys and lieutenants; and 
somehow or other share in the possession and the 
administration of His royalty. 

Or, if I might put it into the grand rolling words of 
John Milton, “They undoubtedly, that by their 
labours, counsels, and prayers have been earnest for 
the common good of religion and their country, shall, 
above the inferior orders of the blessed, receive the 
regal addition of principalities, powers, and thrones 
into their glorious titles.” 


XIX, 


Form and Power. 


“ Havina the form of godliness, but denying the Pore thereof,” — 
2 TIM. iii. 5. 


RIN this, his last letter and legacy, the 
Apostle Paul is much occupied with 
the anticipation of coming evils. It is 
most natural that the faithful watch- 
man, knowing that the hour of reliev- 

ing guard was very near at hand, should eagerly scan 
the horizon in quest of the enemies that might 
approach when he was no longer there to deal with 
them. Old men are apt to take a gloomy view of 
coming days, but the frequent references to the corrup- 
tions of the Church which occur in this letter are a 
great deal more than an old man’s pessimism. They 
were warnings, which were amply vindicated by the 
history of the post-apostolic age of the Church, which 
was the seed-bed of all manner of corruptions, and 
they point to permanent dangers, the warning against 
which is as needful for us as for any period. 

The Apostle draws here a very gloomy picture of the 
corrupt forms of Christianity, the advent of which he 
tremblingly anticipated. I do not mean to enter at 
all upon the dark catalogue of the vices which he 


192 FORM AND POW FR. 


enumerates, except to point out that its beginning, 
middle, and end are very significant. It begins 
with “lovers of self”—that is the root of all 
forms of sin. In the centre there stands “lovers of 
pleasure more than lovers of God”; and at the end, 
summing up the whole, are the words of our text, 
“having the form of godliness, but denying the power 
thereof.” 

I do not suppose that these words need much 
explanation. “Godliness,” in the New Testament, 
means not only the disposition which we call piety, 
but the conduct which flows from it, and which we 
_ may call practical religion. The form or outward 
appearance of that we all understand. But what 
is “denying the power thereof”? It does not 
consist in words, but in deeds. In these latte epistles 
we find “denying” frequently used as equivalent to 
abjwring, renouncing, casting off. For instance, in a 
passage singularly and antithetically parallel to that 
of my text, we read “denying ungodliness and 
worldly lusts,” which simply means throwing off their 
dominion. And, in like manner, the denial here is no 
verbal rejection of the principles of the Gospel, which 
would be inconsistent with the notion of still retain- 
ing the form of godliness; but it is the practical 
renunciation of the power, which is inherent in all 
true godliness, of moulding the life and character— 
the practical renunciation of that, even whilst pre- 
serving a superficial, unreal appearance of being 
subject to it. 

This, then, being the explanation, and the rough 
outline of the state of things which the Apostle con- 
templates as hurrying onwards to corrupt the church 


FORM AND POWER. 193 


after his departure, let us look at some of the thoughts 
connected with it. 

I—Observe the sad frequency of such a condition. 

Wherever any great cause or principle is first 
launched into the world, it evokes earnest enthusiasm, 
and brings men to heroisms of consecration and 
service. And so, when Christianity was first preached, 
there was less likelihood than now of its attracting to 
itself men who were not in earnest, but were mere 
formalists. But, even in the Apostolic Church, there 
were an Ananias and a Sapphira; a Simon Magus 
and a Demas. As years go on, and primitive en- 
thusiasms die out, and the cause which was once all 
freshly radiant and manifestly heaven-born becomes 
an earthly institution, there is a growing tendency to 
gather round it all sorts of superficial, half-and-half 
adherents. Whatsoever is respectable, and whatso- 
ever is venerable, and whatsoever is customary will be | 
sure to have attached to it a mass of loose and 
nominal adherents; and the Gospel has had its full 
share of such. 

I was talking not very long ago to a leading man 
belonging to another denomination than my own; and 
he quietly, as a matter of course, said, “Our com- 
municants are so many hundred thousands. I reckon 
that a quarter of them, or thereabouts, are truly 
spiritual men!” And he seemed to think that nobody 
would question the correctness of the calculation and 
the proportion. Why, “Christendom” is largely a 
mass of pagans masquerading as Christians. 

And every church has its full share of such people; 
loose adherents, clogs upon all movement, who bring 
down the average of warmth, like the great icebergs 

13 


= 


194 FORM AND POWER. 


that float in the Atlantic and lower the temperature 
of the summer all over Europe. They make conse- 
cration “eccentric”; they make consistent, out-and- 
out Christian living “odd,” unlike the ordinary 
thing, and they pull down the spirituality of the 
Church almost to the level of the world. Every com- 
munion of so-called Christian men has its full share 
of these. 

Brethren, the members of this church and congre- 
gation are not exempt. The same thing applies to us. 
Every church of God on the face of the earth has 
a little core of earnest Christians, who live the life, 
and a great envelope and surrounding of men who, as 
my text says, have the form of godliness, and practi- 
cally deny the power thereof. Widespread, and all 
but universal, this condition of things is, And so let 
each of us say,“ Lord! Is it 1?” 

II.—Think, next, of the underground working of 
this evil. 

These people about whom Paul is speaking in my 
text were, I suppose, mostly, though by no means 
exclusively, conscious pretenders to what they did not 
possess. But the number of hypocrites, in the full sense 
of the word, is amazingly small, and the men whom 
you would brand as most distinctly so, if you came 
to talk to them, would amaze you, when you found how © 
entirely ignorant they were of the fact that they were 
dramatizing and pretending to piety, and that there 
was next to no reality of itin them. A very little 
bit of gold, beaten out very thin, will cover over, with a 
semblance of value, an enormous area, And many men 
beat out the little modicum of sincerity that they 
have so very thin that it covers, and gives a deceptive 


FORM AND POWER. 196 


appearance of brilliancy and solidity to, an enormous 
amount of windy flatulence and mere pretence. 
Hypocrites, in the rude vulgar sense of the word, are, 
I was going to say, as rare as, but I will say a great 
deal rarer than, thorough-going and intensely earnest 
and sincere Christians. These men, the precursors of 
Gnostic heresies and a hundred others, had no notion 
that their picture was like this. And if they had 
been shown Paul’s grim catalogue they would have 
said, “Oh! a gross caricature, and not the least like 
me.” And that is what a great many other men do 
as well. 

But it is unconscious hypocrisy, unconscious sliding 
away from the basis of reality on to the slippery 
basis of pretence and appearance, that I want to say 
a word or two about. The worse a. man is, the 
less he knows it. The more completely a professing 
Christian has lost his hold of the substance and is 
clinging only to the form, the less does he suspect 
that this indictment has any application to him. The 
very sign and symptom of spiritual degeneracy and 
corruption is unconsciousness ; as the great champion 
of Israel, when his locks were cropped in Delilah’s 
lap, went out to exercise his mighty limbs as at other 
times, and knew not, till he vainly tried feats which 
their ebbing strength was no longer equal to perform, 
that the Spirit of the Lord had departed from him. 
The more completely a man’s limbs are frost-bitten 
the more comfortable and warm they are, and the less 
does he know it. If a man says, “ Your text has no 
sort of application to me,” he thereby shows that it 
has a very close application to him. 

I need say little about the reasons for this uncon- 

13* 


196 FORM AND POWER. 


sciousness. We are all accustomed to take very lenient 
views, when we take any at all, of our own character ; 
and the tendency of all conduct is to pull down con- 
science to the level of conduct, and to vindicate that 
conduct by biassed decisions of a partial conscience, 
And so I have no doubt that there are people in this 
congregation now listening quite complacently to my 
words, and thinking how well they fit that other 
man in that other pew there, from whom there has, 
without their knowing it, ebbed away, by slow, sad 
drops, almost all the life-blood of their Christianity. 
They are like some great tree that stands in the 
woods, fair to appearance, with solid bole and wide- 
spread leafage, and expanded branches, and yet the 
heart is out of it; and when the tempest comes, and 
it falls, everybody can look into the hollow trunk and 
see that for years it has been rotten. 

Brethren, the underground enemies of our Christian 
earnestness are far more dangerous than its apparent 
and manifest antagonists; and there are many men 
amongst us who would repel with indignation an 
obvious assault against their godliness, who yield with- 
out resistance, and almost without consciousness, to the 
sly seductions of unsuspected evil. The arrow that 
flieth in darkness is more deadly than the pestilence 
that wasteth at noonday. 

III.—Further, notice the ever-operating causes that 
produce this condition. 

I suppose that one, at any rate, of the main 
examples of having this “form” was participation in 
the simple worship of the primitive Church. And 
although the phrase by no means refers merely to 
acts of worship, still that is one of the main fields in 


FORM AND POWER. 197 


which this evil is manifest. Many of us substitute 
outward connection with the Church for inward union 
with Jesus Christ. All external forms have a tend- 
ency to assert themselves, and to detain in themselves, 
instead of helping to rise above themselves, our poor 
sense-ridden natures. How many of us are there 
whose religion consists very largely in coming to this 
place, standing up when other people sing, seeming 
to unite in prayer and praise, perhaps participating 
in the sacred rites of the Church; but having most 
of our religion safely locked up in our pews along 
with our hymn-books when we leave the chapel, 
and waiting for us quietly, without troubling us, 
until next Sunday. We need outward forms of 
worship. It is a sign of our weakness that we do, 
but they are so full of danger that one sometimes 
wishes that they could be broken up and made fluent, 
and that, at least for a time, something else could be 
substituted for them. 

Seeing that the purest and the simplest of forms 
may become like a dirty window, an obscuring 
medium which shuts out instead of lets in the light, 
it seems to me that the churches are wisest, which 
admit least of the dangerous element into their 
external worship, and try to have as little of form as 
may keep the spirit. I know that simple forms may 
be abused quite as much as elaborate ones. I know 
that a Quaker’s meeting-house is often quite as much 
a house of formal and not of real communion as a 
Roman Catholic cathedral. Let us remember how 
full of dangers they all and always are. And let us 
be very sure that we do not substitute chtrch member- 
ship, coming to chapel, going to prayer-meeting, 


198 FORM AND POWER. 


teaching in Sunday-schools, reading devout books, 
and the like, for inward submission to the power. 
Another cause always operating is the tendency 
which all action of every kind has to escape from the 
dominion of its first motives, and to become merely 
mechanical and habitual. Habit is a most precious 
ally of goodness, but habitual goodness tends to 
become involuntary and mechanical goodness, and so 
to cease to be goodness at all. And the more that we 
can, in each given case, make each individual act of 
godliness, whether it be in worship or in practical life, 
the result of a fresh approach to the one central and 
legitimate impulse of the Christian life, the better it 
will be for ourselves, All great causes, as I was saying 
a moment or two ago, tend to pass from the dominion 
of impulse into that of use and wont and mere routine 
and our religion and practical godliness in daily life 
is apt to do that, as well as all our other actions. 
And then, still further, there is the constant 
operation of earth and sense and present duties 
and pressing cares, which war against the reality 
and completeness of our submission to the power of 
godliness. Microscopically minute grains of sand 
in the aggregate bury the temples and the images 
of the gods in the Nile valley. The multitude of 
small cares and duties, which are blown upon us 
by every wind, have the effect of withdrawing us, 
unless we are continually watchful, from that one 
foundation of all good, the love of Jesus Christ. felt 
in our daily lives. Unless we perpetually tighten our. 
hold, it will loosen, by very weariness of the muscles. 
Unless the boat be firmly anchored, it will be drifted 
down the stream. Unless we take care, our Christian 


FORM AND POWER, 199 


life and earnestness will ooze out at our finger-tips, 
and we shall never know that itis gone. The world, 
our own weakness, our very tasks and duties, the 
pressure of circumstances, the sway of our senses, and 
the very habit of doing right—all of these may tend to 
make us mechanical and formal participators in the 
religious life, and unconscious hypocrites. 

IV.—So, lastly, let me point you to the discipline: 
which may avert this evil. 

First and foremost, I would say, let us cherish a 
clear and continual recognition of the reality of the 
danger. Fore-warned is fore-armed. He that will 
take counsel of his own weakness, and be taught by 
God’s Word how unreliable he himself is, and how 
strong the forces are which tend to throw his religion 
all to the surface, will thereby be, if not insured 
against the danger, at least made a great deal more 
competent to deal with it. “Blessed is the man that 
feareth always,” and that knows how likely he is to 
go wrong unless he carefully seeks to keep himself 
right. 

Rigid, habitual self-inspection, in the light of God’s 
Word, is an all-important help to prevent this sliding 
into superficiality, of our Christian life. If what I 
was saying about the unconsciousness of decline is 
at all true, then most eloquently and impressively 
does it say to us all, “ Watch! for you know not what 
may be going on underground unless you keep a con- 
tinual carefulness of inspection.” We should watch 
our own characters, the movement of our spiritual 
nature, and the effect and operation of our habits 
and of our participation in outward forms of Chris- 
tianity , we should watch these as carefully as men 


\ 


200 FORM AND POWER. 


in the tropics look for snakes and scorpions in their 
clothing and their beds before they put them on, or 
get into them. In a country which is only preserved 
by the dykes from being swallowed up by the sea, 
the minutest inspection of the rampart, is the condi- 
tion of security, for if there be a hole big enough for 
a mouse to creep through, the water will come in, and 
make a gap wide enough to drown a province, in a 
little while. And so, brethren, seeing that we have 
such dangers round about us, and that the most 
formidable of them all are powers that work in the 
dark, let us be very sure that our eyes have searched, 
as well as we can, the inmost corners of our lives, and 
that no lurking vermin lie beneath the unturned-up 
stones. 

And then, lastly, and as that without which all else 
is vain, let us make continual and earnest and con- 
trite efforts day by day, to renew and deepen our 
personal communion with Jesus Christ. He is the 
source of the power which godliness operates in our 
lives, and the closer we keep to Him the more it will 
flood our hearts and make us real, out-and-out 
Christians, and not shallow and self-deceived pre- 
tenders. 

The tree that had nothing but leaves upon it hid 
its absence of fruit by its abundance of foliage. The 
Master came, as He comes to you and to me, seeking 
fruit, and if He finds it not, He will perpetuate the 
barrenness by His blasting word, “No fruit grow 
upon thee henceforward for ever.” 


xx, 
Dd in Light. 


*THov shalt hide them in the secret of Thy presence from the 
pride of man: Thou shalt keep them secretly in a pavilion 
from the strife of tongues.” —PSALM xxxi. 20. 


| HE word rendered “ presence ” is literally 
‘1 “face,” and the force of this very 
remarkable expression of confidence 
is considerably marred unless that 
rendering is retained. There are 
other analogous expressions in Scripture, setting 
forth, under various metaphors, God’s protection of 
them that love Him. But I know not that there is 
any so noble and striking as this. For instance, we 
read of His hiding His children “in the secret of His 
tabernacle,” or tent; as an Arab chief might doa 
fugitive who had eaten of his salt, secreting him in 
the recesses of his tent whilst the pursuers scoured 
the desert in vain for their prey. Again, we read of 
His hiding them “beneath the shadow of His wing” ; 
where the Divine love is softened into the likeness of 
the maternal instinct which leads a hen to gather her 
chickens beneath the shelter of her own warm and 
outspread feathers. But the metaphor of my text is 
more vivid and beautiful still. “Thou shalt hide 
them in the secret of Thy face.” The light that 


202 HID IN LIGHT. 


streams from that countenance is the hiding-place for 
a poor man. These other metaphors may refer, 
perhaps, the one to the temple, and the other to the 
outstretched wings of the cherubim that shadowed 
the Mercy-seat. And, if so, this metaphor carries us 
still more near to the central blaze of the Shekinah, 
the glory that hovered above the Mercy-seat, and 
glowed in the dark sanctuary, unseen but once a year 
by one trembling high priest, who had to bear with 
him blood of sacrifice, lest the sight should slay. 
The Psalmist says that into that fierce light a man may 
go, and stand in it, bathed, concealed, secure. “Thou 
shalt hide them in the secret of Thy face.” 

I—Now, then, let us notice, first, this hiding- 
place. 

The “face” of God is so strongly figurative an 
expression that its metaphorical character cannot but 
be obvious to the most cursory reader. The very 
frankness, and, we may say, the grossness of the image, 
saves it from misconception, and, as with other similar 
expressions in the Old Testament, at once suggests its 
meaning. We read, for example, of the “arm,” the 
“hand,” the “finger ” of God, and everybody feels that 
that means His power. We read of the “eye” of God, 
and everybody knows that that means His omniscience, 
We read of the “ear” of God, and we all understand 
that that holds forth the blessed thought that He 
hears and answers the cry of such as be sorrowful, 
And, in like manner, the “face” of God is the appre- 
hensible part of the Divine nature which turns to 
men, and by which He makes Himself known. It is 
roughly equivalent to the other Old and New 
Testament expression, the “name of the Lord,” the 


HID IN LIGHT. 203 


manifested and revealed side of the Divine nature. 
And that is the hiding-place into which men may go. 
' We have the other expression also in Scripture, 
“the light of Thy countenance,” and that helps us to 
apprehend the Psalmist’s meaning. “The light of 
Thy face” is “secret.” What a paradox! Can light 
conceal? Look at the daily heavens—filled with 
blazing stars, all invisible till the night falls. The 
effulgence of the face is such that they who stand in 
in it are lost and hid, like the lark in the blue sky. 
“A glorious privacy of light is Thine.” There isa 
wonderful metaphor in the New Testament of a 
woman “clothed with the sun,” and caught up into it 
from her enemies, to be safe there. And that is just 
an expansion of the Psalmist’s grand paradox, “Thou 
shalt hide them in the secret of Thy face.” Light 
conceals, when the light is so bright as to dazzle. 
They who are surrounded by God are lost in the 
glory, and safe in that seclusion, “the secret of Thy 
face.” 

A thought may be suggested, although it is some- 
what of a digression from the main purpose of my 
text, but it springs naturally out of this paradox, and 
may just deserve a word. Revelation is real, but 
Revelation has its limits. That which is revealed is 
“the face of God.” But we read, “no man can see My 
face.” After all Revelation He remains hidden. After 
all pouring forth of His beams He remains “the God 
that dwelleth in the thick darkness,” and the light 
which is inaccessible is also a darkness that can be 
felt. Apprehension is possible; comprehension is im- 
possible. What we know of God is valid and true, 
but we never shall know all the depths that lie in that 


204 HID IN LIGHT, 


which we do know of Him. His face is “the secret”; 
and though men may malign Him when they say, 
“Verily Thou art a God that hidest Thyself, O God of © 
Israel,” and He answers them, “I have not spoken in 
secret ” in a “dark place of the earth,” it still remains 
true that Revelation has its mysteries born of the 
greatness of its effulgence, and that all which we 
know of God is “ dark with excess of light.” 

But that is aside from our main purpose. Let me 
rather remind you of how the thought of the secret 
of God’s face being the secure hiding-place of them 
that love Him points to this truth—that that bright- 
ness of light has a repellent power, which keeps far 
away from all intermingling with it everything that is 
evil. The old Greek mythologies tell us that the 
radiant arrows of Apollo, shot forth from his far- 
reaching bow, wounded to death the monsters of the 
slime and unclean creatures that crawled and revelled 
in darkness. And the myth has a great truth in it. 
The light of God’s face slays evil, of whatsoever kind 
it is; and just as the unlovely, loathsome creatures, 
that live in the dark and find themselves at ease there, 
writhe and wriggle in torment, and die when their 
shelter is taken away and they are exposed to the sun- 
shine beating on their soft bodies, so the light of God’s 
face turned upon evil things smites them into nothing- 
ness. Thus “the secret of His countenance” is the 
shelter of all that is good. 

Nor need I remind you how, in another aspect of 
the phrase, the “light of His face,” is the expression 
for His favour and loving regard, and how true it is 
that in that favour and loving regard is the impreg- 
nable fortress into which, entering, any man is safe, I 


HID IN LIGHT. 205 


said that the expression the “face of the Lord” 
roughly corresponded to the other one, “the name of 
the Lord,” inasmuch as both meant the revealed 
aspect of the Divine nature. You may remember 
how we read, “ The name of the Lord is a strong tower 
into which the righteous runneth and is safe.” The 
“light” of the face of the Lord is His favour and 
loving regard falling upon men. And who can be 
harmed with that lambent light—like the sunshine 
upon water, or upon a glittering shield—playing 
around Him ? 

Only let us remember that for us “the face of God” 
is Jesus Christ. He is the “arm” of the Lord; He is 
the “name” of the Lord; He is the “ face.” All that 
we know of God we know through and in Him; all 
that we see of God we see by the shining upon us of 
Him, who is “the eradiation of His glory and the 
express image of His person.” So the open secret ot 
the “face” of God is Jesus, the hiding-place of our 
souls. 

II.—Secondly, notice God’s hidden ones. 

My text carries us back, by that word “them,” to 
the previous verse, where we have a double descrip- 
tion of those who are thus hidden in the inaccessible 
light of His countenance. They are “such as fear 
Thee,” and “such as trust in Thee.” Now, that latter 
expression is congruous with the metaphor of my text, 
in so far as the words on which we are now engaged 
speak about a “hiding-place,’” and the word which is 
translated “ trust ” literally means “to flee to a refuge,” 
So they that flee to God for refuge are those whom 
God hides in the “ secret of His face.” Let us think 
of that for a moment. 


206 HID IN LIGHT. * 


I said, in the beginning of these remarks, that there 
was here an allusion, possibly, to the Temple. All 
temples in ancient times were asylums. Whosoever 
could flee to grasp the horns of the altar, or to sit, 
veiled and suppliant, before the image of the god, was 
secure from his foes, who could not pass within the 
limits of the temple grounds, in which strife and 
murder were not permissible. We too often flee to 
other gods and other temples for our refuges, Ay! 
and when we get there, we find that the deity whom 
we have invoked is only a marble image that sits deaf, 
dumb, motionless, whilst we cling to its unconscious 
skirts. As one of the saddest of our modern cynics 
once said, looking up at that lovely impersonation of 
Greek beauty, the Venus de Milo, “Ah! she is fair; 
but she has no arms.” So we may say of all false 
refuges to which men betake themselves. The god- 
dess is powerless to help, however beautiful the 
presentment of her may have seemed to our eyes, 
The evils from which we have fled to these false deities 
and shelterless sanctuaries will pursue us across the 
boundary ; and, as Elijah did with the priests of Baal 
upon Carmel, will slay us at the very foot of the altar 
to which we have clung, and vexed with our vain 
prayers. There is only one shrine where there is a 
sanctuary, and that is the shrine above which shines 
the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ; into the 
brightness of which poor men may pass and therein 
may hide.themselves. God hides us in the secret of 
the light and splendour of His face, and His hiding 
is effectual. 

I said, too, that there was an allusion, as there is in 
- all the psalms that deal with men as God’s guests, to 


HID IN LIGHT. 207 


the ancient customs of hospitality, by which a man 
who had once entered the tent of the chief, and par- 
taken of food there, was safe, not only from his pursuers, 
but from his host himself, even though that host 
should be the kinsman-avenger. The red-handed 
murderer, who has eaten the salt of the man whose 
duty it otherwise would have been to slay him where 
he stood, is secure from his vengeance. And thus they 
who cast themselves upon God have nothing to fear. 
No other hand can pluck them from the sanctuary of 
His tent. He himself, having admitted them to share 
His hospitality, cannot and will not lift a hand against 
them. Weare safe from God only when we are safe 
in God. 

But remember the condition on which this security 
comes. “Thou shalt hide them in the secret of Thy 
face.” Whom? Those that “flee for refuge to Thee.” 
The act of simple faith is set forth there, by which a 
poor man, with all his imperfections on his head, may 
yet venture to put his foot across the boundary line 
that separates the outer darkness from the blaze of 
light that comes from God's face. “Who among us 
shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us 
shall dwell with everlasting burnings?” That ques- 
tion does not mean, as it is often taken to mean— 
What mortal can endure the punishments of a future 
life? but, Who can venture to be God’s guests? and 
it is equivalent to the other interrogation, “ Who shall 
ascend to the hill of the Lord, or who shall stand in 
His holy place?” The answer is, If you go to Him 
for refuge, knowing your danger, feeling your impurity, 
you may walk amidst all that light softened into 
lambent beauty, as those Hebrew children did in 


208 HID IN LIGHT. 


the furnace of fire, being at ease there, and feel 
ing it well with themselves, and having nothing 
consumed about them except the bonds that bound 
them. 

Remember that Jesus Christ is the hiding-place, 
and that to flee to Him for refuge is the condition of 
security. All they who thus, from the snares of life, 
from its miseries, disappointments, and burdens; 
from the agitations of their own hearts, from the 
ebullition of their own passions; from the stings of 
their own conscience, or from other of the ills that 
flesh is heir to, make their hiding-place—by the simple 
act of faith of Jesus Christ—in the light of God’s face 
are thereby safe for evermore. 

But the initial act of fleeing to the refuge must be 
continued by abiding in the refuge. It is of no use 
to take shelter in the light unless we abide in the 
light. It is of no use to go to the Temple for sanctuary 
unless we continue in it for sacrifice and worship. 
We must “ walk in the light as God is in the light.” 
That is to say, the condition of being hid in God is, 
first of all, to take refuge in Jesus Christ, and then to 
abide in Him by continual communion. “ Your life is 
hid with Christ in God.” Unless we have a hidden 
life, deep beneath, and high above, and far beyond the 
life of sense, we have no right to think that the 
shelter of the Face will be security for us. The very 
essence of Christianity is the habitual communion of 
heart, mind, and will with God in Christ. Do you 
live in the light, or have you only gone there to escape 
what you are afraid of? Do you live in the light by 
the continual direction of thought and heart to Him, 
cultivating the habit of daily and hourly communion 


HID IN LIGHT. 209 


with Him amidst the distractions of necessary duty, 
care, and changing circumstances. 

But not only by communion, but also by conduct, 
must we keep in the light. The fugitive found outside 
the city of refuge was fair game for the avenger, and if 
He strayed beyond its bounds there was a sword in his 
back before he knew where he was. Every Christian 
by each sin, whether it be acted or only thought, casts 
himself out of the light into the darkness that rings 
it round, and out there he is a victim to the beasts of 
prey that hunt in darkness. An eclipse of the sun is 
not caused by any change in the sun, but by an 
opaque body, the offspring and satellite of the earth, 
coming between the earth and sun. And so, when 
Christian men lose the light of God’s face, it is not 
because there is any variableness or shadow of turning 
in Him, but because between Him and them has come 
the blackness of their own sin—their own offspring. 
You are not safe if you are outside the light of the 
countenance. These are the conditions of security. 

IH.—Lastly, note what the hidden ones find in the 
light. 

This burst of confidence in my text comes from the 
Psalmist immediately after plaintively pouring out 
his soul under the pressure of afilictions. His experi- 
ence may teach us the interpretation of his glaa 
assurance, 

God will keep all real evil from us if we keep near 
Him ; but He will not keep the externals that men 
call evil from us. I do not know whether there is 
such a thing as filtering any poisons or malaria from 
the air by means of light, but I am sure that the light 
of God filters our atmosphere for us. Though it may 

14 


210 HID IN LIGHT, 


leave the external forms of evil, it takes all the poison 
out of them and turns them into harmless ministers 
for our good. The arrows that are launched at us 
may be tipped with venom when they leave the bow, 
but if they pass through the radiant envelope of 
Divine protection that surrounds us—and they must 
have passed. through that if they reach us—it cleanses 
all the venom from their points, though it leaves the 
sharpness there. The evil is not an evil if it has got 
our length; and its having touched us shows that He 
who lets it pass into the light, where His children 
safely dwell, knows that it cannot harm them. 

But, again, we shall find, if we live in continual 
communion with the revealed face of God, that we are 
elevated high above all the strife of tongues and the 
noise of earth. We shall “outsoar the shadow of the 
night,” and be lifted to an elevation from which all 
the clamours of earth will sound faint and poor, like 
the noises of the city to the dwellers on a mountain 
peak. Nor do we find only security there, for the 
word in the second clause of my text, “Thou shalt 
keep them secretly,” is the same as is employed in the 
previous verse, in reference to the treasures which God 
lays wp for them that fear Him. The poor men who 
trust in God, and the wealth which He has to lavish 
upon them, are both hid; and they are hid in the 
same place. The “goodness wrought before the sons 
of men” has not emptied the reservoir. After all 
expenditure the massy ingots of gold in God’s store- 
house are undiminished. The mercy still to come is 
greater than that already received. “To-morrow 
shall be as this day and much more abundant.” This 
river broadens as we mount towards its source, 


HID IN LIGHT. 211 


Brethren, the face of God must be either our dearest 
joy or our greatest dread. There comes a time when 
you and I must front it, and look into His eyes. It 
is for us to settle whether at that day we shall call 
upon the rocks and the hills to hide us from it, or 
whether we shall say with rapture, “Thou hast made 
us most blessed with Thy countenance.” Which is it 
to be? It must be one or other. When He says, 
“Seek ye My face,” may our hearts answer, “ Thy face, 
Lord, will I seek,” that when we see it hereafter 
shining as the sun in his strength, its light may not 
be darkness to our impure and horrorstruck eyes! 


14” 


XXI. 


Full of Foy and of the holy Ghost. 


“THE eunuch went on his way rejoicing.”—ACTS viii. 39. 
“The disciples were filled with joy, and with the Holy Ghost.”— 
Aots xiii. 52. 


<75|HERE is a striking resemblance between 
(| the condition of the eunuch deprived 
of his teacher and of these raw dis- 
ciples, in Pisidian Antioch, bereft of 
== theirs. Both were very recent con- 
verts ; both had the scantiest knowledge; both were 
left utterly alone. One might have forgiven the 
Ethiopian statesman if, as he contemplated his plunge 
into the darkness of his own country, where there 
was not a single Christian soul but himself, he had 
looked with some lingering regrets after his vanished 
teacher. But no sentiment of that sort fills his mind. 
“He went on his way rejoicing.” The explanation 
which is’ supplied in reference to the Christians of 
Antioch, who stretched out no hands to retain Paul 
and Barnabas, and scarcely seemed to miss them, but 
“were filled with joy,” may avail for the eunuch’s 
experience too. They were full of the Spirit of God, 
and that enabled them to do without teachers, and 
more than made up for all losses. 


FULL OF JOY AND OF THE HOLY GHOST. 213 


Now this phrase, “full of the Holy Ghost,” is not 
an uncommon one in the Acts of the Apostles; and 
the writer is fond of connecting with it other bless- 
ings and graces, of which it is declared to be the 
cause. So, for instance, we read that the deacons, 
who were to be chosen, were to be “men full of the 
Holy Ghost and of wisdom”; and of Stephen we 
read that “he was full of the Holy Ghost and of 
faith.” In like manner, the explanation of my text 
traces the joy of these solitary Christian souls to 
their abiding and complete possession of that Divine 
Spirit. 

This state of being “filled with the Holy Ghost” is 
not regarded by the writer of the Acts of the Apostles 
as necessarily carrying with it the power of working 
miracle, or any other supernatural endowment, nor is 
it confined to the aristocracy of the Church, but it 
belongs to all. And if any Christian man is not thus 
completely possessed by the Divine Spirit, the Source 
of new life, and the very Soul of his soul, the fault 
lies wholly at his own door. 

The two texts that I have put together, regarded in 
the light of the circumstances of the persons to whom 
they refer, seem to me to suggest to us two or three 
very large and blessed thoughts of what is available 
and possible for, and therefore the duty of, every 
Christian—the being “filled with the Spirit of God.” 
So filled, we shall have an all-sufficient Teacher for 
all our ignorance; a Companion for all our solitude ; 
a fountain of joy in all our sorrow. And the stories 
before us may help to illustrate these three things, 

_ I—First, then, note here the all-sufficient Teacher 
for our ignorance, 


214 FULL OF JOY AND OF THE HOLY GHOST. 


Think, for instance, of that Ethiopian statesman. 
An hour or two before, he had said, “How can I 
understand except some man guide me?” And now 
he is going away into the darkness, without a single 
external help of any kind, knowing only the little 
that he had gathered from Philip, in the course of a 
short conversation in the chariot. He had not a line 
of the New Testament. There were no Gospels in 
his day. He had nothing but a scroll of the prophet 
Isaiah in the way of outward help, but he went away 
with a glad heart, quite sure that he would be taught 
all he needed to know. 

And these other people at Antioch, just dragged out 
of the filth and darkness of heathenism, with no 
teaching beyond the rudimentary instruction of the 
two apostles for a few days—they, too, were left by 
their teachers without a fear, and felt themselves 
alone without a tremor, because the teachers “com- 
mended them to God, and to the word of His grace,” 
and the taught felt that they had a Divine instructor 
dwelling in their hearts. 

The same thing has been experienced over and over 
again in the history of the Church. How often we 
have heard of some poor man that came to a Christian 
teacher in a heathen land, and picked up the one 
thought that God had sent His Son to love him and 
die for him ; and carried that away in his heart into 
some solitary corner, and there, all alone and untaught 
of men, found that this one truth blossomed out into 
all manner of Divine wisdom according to his need! 

There was once a great mission from one of our 
English denominations in the Island of Madagascar. 
It was smitten by persecution. Long years passed 


FULL OF JOY AND OF THE HOLY GHOST. 215 


during which not a soul went there from any 
Christian land. When at last communication was 
restored, what was found? A flourishing church. 
Who had taught it? God’s Spirit. 

Ah, brethren, we trust far too little to the educating 
and enlightening power of God’s grace in the hearts 
of men who have no other teacher. And if Christian 
people more really believed the promise of their 
Master, which said, “He will guide you into all truth,” 
they would be more likely to realize the promise, and 
be all taught of God. I would that I could rouse you 
Christian people to the real belief in that saying of 
Scripture, “ Ye have an unction of the Holy One, and 
ye need not that any man teach you.” 

Only remember, the instrument of that Divine 
Teacher is the Word of God. Andif we, as Christians, 
neglect our Bibles, we shall not get the teaching of the 
Spirit of God. And remember, too, that that teaching 
is granted to us on plainly defined conditions. There 
must be a desire for it. Oh, what an enormous and 
tragical number are there of so-called Christians who 
have no conception that there is anything more for 
them to learn than the initial truth, the acceptance of 
which saved their souls—viz., that Jesus Christ died 
on the cross for them. It is quite true that in one 
sense there is no more to learn. It is also true that it 
will take eternity for us to learn all that is in that one 
word. A clown in the fields sees as many stars as an 
astronomer, but it takes a lifetime of patient gazing 
and of hard study in order to arrive at some notion of 
the laws that move the shining orbs, and of their 
mighty magnitudes and distances. And so with the 
simple truth, which a half idiot and an almost babe 


216 FULL OF JOY AND OF THE HOLY GHOST. 


may take to heart, and find life in—viz., the sacrifice of 
the Son of God for the world’s sins—there lie depths 
that will task the largest faculties, and will reward 
and bless the most protracted and patient search. If 
you do not desire a deeper, fuller, more vital, and more 
comprehensive knowledge of the treasures of wisdom 
that are laid up in that “simple gospel,” you cannot 
expect that you will be taught what you do not want 
to know; or that the Spirit of God will force instrus- 
tion upon an unwilling heart. You must desire it, and 
you must use the instrument. Read your Bibles, 
ponder your Bibles, become masters of them. 

And there must be patient waiting and solitary 
meditation. They tell us that it is possible to overdo 
the manuring of a farm, and to put so much nourish- 
ment and stimulus upon the land as to spoil it. 
There are a great many Christians who have got so 
much of men’s thinking, so many books, so many 
treatises, So many sermons, carted and shovelled on ~ 
to their souls, that the productivity of their souls is 
ruined. And in this day of so many voices speaking 
of religion, precious as some of them may be, and 
helpful as the ministration of the Word is, from a 
brother's lips, if rightly used, there is sore need that 
Christian men should be pointed away from all human 
teachers, from a Philip and a Paul and a Barnabas, 
from an evangelist and an apostle, and should be 
relegated to the one great Teacher whose voice 
speaketh in secret, and makes us wise unto salvation. 
Depend upon it, the eunuch was in as good a place 
for profiting by the teaching of the Spirit of God in 
lonely Abyssinia, and amidst the secularities of the 
court of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, as if he 


FULL OF JOY AND OF THE HOLY GHOST. 217 


had been sitting in the middle of the church at 
Jerusalem and listening to the teaching of the 
apostles. Let us take the lesson, and whosesoever 
scholars we may be, let us enrol ourselves in the 
school of the Master, and learn from that Spirit who 
will guide us into all truth. 

Ii.—Noy, note, secondly, the Companion in all our 
solitude. 

Think of the loneliness of this man on the Gaza 
road, or of that handful of sheep in the midst of 
wolves in Antioch. And yet they were not alone, 
“Full of the Holy Ghost,” they were conscious of a 
Divine presence. And so it may be, dear brethren, 
with us all, We are all condemned to live alone, 
however many may be the troops of friends round 
us. Every human soul, after all love and companion- 
ship, lives isolated. There is only One who can pass 
the awful boundary of personality which hedges off 
every man from every other. Love comes to the 
gate, and sends its sweet influences within, but still 
there is a film of distance between. There is only 
one Being that can pass within and mingle—in no 
metaphor, but in fullest reality—His being with my 
being, so that, in a very deep and blessed sense, we 
may be one. “He that is joined to the Lord is one 
spirit "—two, in so far that there remains the sweet 
consciousness of giving and receiving; one, in so far 
that a mightier smelting power than that of earthly 
love is in operation to fuse the believing spirit with 
the Spirit of the living God. 

Let no man say that that is mystical and wants 
verifying. Trust Christ and you will have it verified. 
It is not mysticism, it is the very heart of the Gospel. 


218 FULL OF JOY AND OF THE HOLY GHOST. 


We need never be alone if we have this Companion. 
Besides the natural, necessary solitude in which 
every human soul lives there are some of us, no 
doubt, on whom God, by His providence, has laid the 
_ burden of a very lonely life. God’s purpose in mak- 
' ing us solitary is to join Himself to us. He sent His 
prophet away into the dreadful desert of Sinai, that 
there, amidst its wild peaks and blasted dreary lone- 
liness, he might see the great sight and hear the 
Divine voice. “I will bring her ifito the desert, and 
will speak to her heart.” Oh, brother, if your hand 
has been untwined from a dear hand—if you look 
along the long stretch of life, and see no prospect 
of other companion—learn the lesson and the 
privilege of your solitude, and take God into it 
to keep you company. Left alone, nestle close to 
Him. 

Beside the natural and the providential solitudes 
there is yet another. We must make a solitude for 
ourselves, if we would have God speaking to us and 
keeping us company. Solitude is the mother-country 
of the strong. To be much alone is the condition of 
sanity and nobleness of life. I know, of course, that 
domestic arrangements and imperative duties make 
it all but impossible for many of us to realize to any 
large extent the outward solitude, which is so calm- 
ing and bracing and every way desirable. But, for 
all that, brother, and making all needful allowance, 
and gladly remembering that God will come to people 
in a crowd, if His providence has fixed them there, 
let us not forget that there must be a Mount of 
Olives in the life of every follower of Jesus Christ. 
We cannot afford to neglect what He had to attend 


FULL OF JOY AND OF THE HOLY GHOST. 219 


to, who the more He was busy in the Temple, the 
more went out to the mountain-top, and continued 
there all night in prayer to God. His command- 
ment to us is still, “Come ye yourselves apart into a 
desert place and rest awhile.” Conferences and meet- 
ings and congresses and crowds have their function, 
no doubt—perhaps we could do with fewer of them— 
but, at all events, no man’s religion will be deep and 
strong unless he has learned to go into the secret 
place of the Most High, and shut his doors about 
him, and there receive the fulness of that Spirit. 

III.—Lastly, notice the Joy in all sorrow. 

“Full of joy and of the Holy Ghost,” says the 
latter of these two texts. That collocation is familiar 
to the student of the New Testament. You will 
remember the Apostle’s great enumeration of the fruits 
of the Spirit: “Love, joy, peace.” And in another 
place, still more relevant to our present purpose, he 
speaks to the members of one of his churches, and 
tells them that they had “received the word in much 
affliction with joy of the Holy Ghost.” So, then, who- 
ever has this Divine Guest dwelling in his heart, may 
possess, and will possess, a joy as complete as is Its 
possession of him. 

I need not remind you how that Divine Spirit 
who enters into our souls by faith brings to us the 
consciousness of forgiveness and of sonship, nor 
how It fits the needs of every part of our nature, 
and brings all our being into harmony with itself, 
with circumstances, and with God; and how, there- 
fore, the man who thus is truly “good,” is “satisfied 
from himself,” because himself is not himself only, but 
himself with the Holy Spirit dwelling in him; how 


220 FULL OF JOY AND OF THE HOLY GHOST. 


such a man needs not to go to the brackish ponds of 
earthly and outward satisfaction, but has a never- 
failing fountain within, springing up, with joyous 
inherent energy, up, and up, and up into life ever- 
lasting. 

But I may remind you that not only does this 
Divine Spirit in us make provision for joy, but that, 
with such an indwelling Guest, there is the possibility 
of the co-existence of joy and sorrow. It was no paradox 
that the Apostle gave forth when he said, “Sorrowful, 
yet always rejoicing.” Even in the midst of the snow 
and cold and darkness of Arctic regions, the explorers 
build houses for themselves of the very blocks of ice, 
and within are warmth and light and comfort and 
vitality, while around is a dreary waste. There may 
be two currents in the great ocean; a cold one may 
set from the pole and threaten to chill and freeze all 
life out, but from the equator there will be a warm one 
which will more than counterbalance the inrush of the 
cold. And so it is possible for us, even when things 
about us are dark and gloomy, and flesh and natural 
sensibilities all proclaim to us the necessity of sadness 
—it is possible for us to be aware of a central blessed- 
ness, not boisterous, but so grave and calm that the 
world cannot discriminate between it and sadness, 
which yet its possessors know to be blessedness 
unmingled. Left alone, we may have a companion ; 
in our ignorance we may be enlightened; and in the 
murkiest night of our sorrow we may have, burning 
cheerily within our hearts, a light unquenchable. 

But remember that this joy from the Spirit isa 
commandment. I am sure that Christians do not 
sufficiently. lay to theart that gladness is their duty, 


FULL OF JOY AND OF THE HOLY GHOST. 221 


and that sorrow unrelieved by it is cowardice and sin. 
We have no business to be thus sorrowful. There are 
no unmingled, and there are no irrevocable, causes for 
sorrow in the lives of any men who can say, “God 
is my Father; Christ is my Brother; the Spirit of 
God dwells in my heart.” “Therefore, rejoice in the 
Lord always, and again I say, Rejoice.” : 

But remember the conditions. If you and I have 
that Divine Spirit within us we shall be enlightened, 
however ignorant; companioned, however solitary ; 
joyful, however ringed about with sorrow. If we have 
not, the converse will be true: we shall grope in the 
darkness, however we conceit ourselves to know; we 
shall have a central sorrow, however we may have a 
delusive, superficial joy, “the end of which is heavi- 
ness,” and we shall be alone, however we may seem 
to be companied by troops of friends.. If we have 
faith in Christ we shall have the Spirit of Christ. If 
like the people in one of my texts, we can say truly 
that we are disciples, “ we shall be filled with joy and 
with the Holy Ghost.” He that is full of fa‘ th is full 
of God’s Spirit. 


=the 


XXIL 


Pilate washing bis bands, 


“PInATE . . . took water, and washed his hands before the 
multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just 
person ; see ye to it.”"—MATT. xxvii. 24. 


Beh ise motives in surrendering Jesus 
to death were as plain as they were 
paltry. He had no fear that any 
danger to Rome would result from 
Christ. The characteristic Roman 

pac sd ideas and ideals which speaks in his 

cynical question, “ What is truth?” led him to look 
with a kind of almost amused pity at a man whom he 
thought of as a mere harmless enthusiast. He knew 
his subjects too well to suppose that they would have 
been so eager to surrender an effective leader of revolt, 
and he detected the personal “malice” which lay 
behind their newborn and suspicious loyalty. Then 
personal motives came in. He feared being accused 
at Rome. And so, for his own security, he stifled his 
conscience, resisted his wife’s warnings, and gave up 

Jesus to their will. The death of one Jew was a trifle 

if he could keep his ticklish charge in good-humour. 

That was his sin. He knew that Christ’s death would 

be murder. He knew that he was art and part in it. 

And yet he took the basin and washed his hands 


PILATE WASHING HIS HANDS. 223 


before the howling mob. In vain! “All the perfumes 
of Araby could not whiten that hand,” and his impo- 
tent effort to cast off responsibility only witnessed to 
his consciousness of it. 

So this saying of his and his deed may suggest to 
us some wholesome thoughts. 

I—The first point to notice is the vain plea for 
wrongdoing. 

Pilate excused himself to himself on the ground 
that policy and self-defence forced him to his act. 
He could say “I am innocent” because he said, “I 
am obliged to connive at this crime.” Though in his 
case the plea is for a gigantic sin, and in our cases it 
may be for a comparatively small one, the same sort 
of thing is being said by us continually. Nothing is 
more common than for a man to say to himself, “ Well, 
I am very sorry, I could not help myself. I was forced 
into it by the exigencies of my position. Circumstances 
required it. This, that, and the other desirable thing, 
as it seems to me, could not be got without a little 
straining of what is right, and a little yielding to the 
force of men or things round about me. And so it is 
really the cruel circumstances in which I was placed, 
far more than myself, that ought to be condemned as 
responsible for this deed of mine.” 

Well, now, dear friends, it is a very plain and thread- 
bare and commonplace piece of morality, but it needs 
to be reiterated over and over again—there is nothing 
necessary for a man, which he can only get or keep by 
‘tampering with conscience. There are two things 
needful for us: God and righteousness; and there is 
no third. With these we have what we need; with- 
out them, we have not. And nothing is worth the 


“994 PILATE WASHING HIS HANDS. 


buying for which we have to part with absolute 
adherence to the law of right. 

You remember the quaint story of the man in the 
dock who said to the judge, “It is necessary that 
should live,” and was answered, “I do not see 
the necessity.” No, there is not a necessity for 
living, if we have to sin in order to live. It is better 
to die. The one thing needful is “to glorify God, and 
to enjoy Him for ever.” And so Necessity, which is 
sometimes said to be “the tyrant’s plea,” is the 
coward’s plea as well; and the weakling’s plea. 

And in another way, the pleading of compulsion 
from without, as an excuse for evil, is evidently 
vain; because no man and no thing can force us to 
do wrong. We know, in each specific case, that, 
however strong the temptation may have been, we 
could have resisted it if we would, and that therefore 
the yielding to it was our act and ours only. 

Therefore let no man say, “1 had to yield to popular 
clamour. I was overborne by the rush of general 
opinion. Everybody else thought so, and, therefore, 
Thad to say so.” That is the crying sin that besets 
public men and aspirants after public positions, in a 
democratic country like ours. And this last fortnight* 
has let us see, in many places, examples of it, of men 
paltering with convictions, and stretching to the 
breaking point their conceptions of right, because 
they thought that they would gain favour thereby. 
I am not speaking about this man or that man, about 
this party or that party, but I am taking a modern 
instance illustrating an ancient saw. Pilate’s sin has 
been committed in England these last few days over 


* This sermon was preached after a General Election. 


PILATE WASHING HIS HANDS. 225 


and over again. “The people would have it so; and 
T said it, and I did it.” 

But it is not only statesmen and politicians and 
officials and other men who live by the breath of 
popular favour and appreciation that are in danger 
from such a shabby excuse as this. It applies to us 
all. Therefore, let us fix it firmly in our hearts that if 
once we admit considerations of expediency, or of the 
pressure of circumstances, or of personal advantage, 
to modify our conceptions of duty, we have embarked 
on a voyage on which there is nothing before us but 
shipwreck. 

The compasses on board iron vessels get unreliable, 
and need to be rectified. If a man once allows the 
iron mass of popular opinion, or of apparently com- 
pelling circumstances, to touch his conscience, then 
it is deflected from the pole of right. One thing only 
is to be our guide, and that is the plain, simple dictate 
of imperative duty, which alone is essential for the 
blessedness of our lives. 

If we want to keep firm to that stern adherence to 
the loftiest conception of conduct, and to obey duty, 
and not inclinations or apparent necessity, there is 
only one effectual way of doing it, and that is to live 
in close and constant touch with Jesus Christ, who 
pleased not Himself; and to whom nothing was 
necessary, except that He should do the will of the 
Father that sent Him, and finish His work. 

II.—Then, secondly, notice here the possibility of 
entire self-deception. 

This man had managed to persuade himself, on a 
very rotten plea, as I have tried to suggest, that he 
was entirely free from guilt in his act. And the fact 

15 


226 PILATE WASHING HIS HANDS. 


that the man who did the most awful of crimes— 
though perhaps he was not the most guilty—could do 
it with the profession, to some extent sincere, of 
innocence, may teach us very solemn lessons. 

You can persuade yourself that almost any wrong 
thing is right, if only you desire to do so. Conscience 
is no separate faculty dwelling in a man, irrespective 
of the moral condition of the man, and acting as if it 
were apart altogether from the rest of him. What we 
call conscience is only the whole man judging the - 
moral character of his doings. And so its judgments 
vary according to his whole character. It is no in- 
flexible standard, like the golden measuring-rod of 
the angel, but a leaden rule which may be bent, cur- 
tailed, and tampered with in many different ways. 
You can lash the helm to one side of the ship, and 
keep it fast there, if you like. Will can silence con- - 
science, and say, “ Hold your tongue!” and it obeys 
to a very large extent. Inclination can silence con- 
science. We all 


“ Compound for sins we are inclined to 
By damning those we have no mind to.” 


The rush of passion can silence conscience. A 
whisper is not audible amidst the roar of Niagara. 
True, it speaks afterwards and says to us, “ Now you 
shall listen!” But then that is too late. The very 
stress of daily life tends to weaken the power of 
pronouncing moral judgment on the things that we 
are doing. Scientists tell us that aneroid barometers 
will correspond with mercurial ones a great deal more 
closely in the observatory than they do on the field 
or mountain side, So, conscience will coincide with 


PILATE WASHING HIS HANDS. 227 


— 


the absolute law of right a great deal more accurately 
when there is no stress of temptation or of daily 
work to perturb it. And thus it comes about that 
it is possible for us to be breathing a poisonous 
atmosphere, and to have our lungs so habituated to 
the carbonic acid that we do not know how foul it is, 
till we get out into purer air and take a deep breath 
of it. We all have sins altogether unsuspected by 
ourselves. 

Therefore the acquittal of conscience is no sign of 
the acquittal of God. “I have nothing against 
myself,” said Paul, in reference to his official tasks; 
“yet .am I not hereby justified, but He that judgeth 
me is the Lord.” “Happy is he that condemneth not 
himself in that thing which he alloweth.” There are 
plenty of us that do just as Pilate—who condemned 
himself in saying, “I am innocent of the blood.” 

Therefore, dear friends, one prime element of all 
noble living is to have special care to cultivate sen- 
sitiveness of conscience beyond its present degree. 
And how is that to be done? Mainly and chiefly, I 
believe, by living, as I have already said in reference 
to another matter, in touch with Jesus Christ. Mainly 
by having the habit of referring all that we are to 
the pattern of what we ought to be, which is set forth 
in Him. Conscience is not our guide, It is the 
recorder and repeater of guidance from the Christ, 
and only in the measure in which it is educated, cor- 
rected, enlightened, and made more sensitive by the 
habit of always thinking of Jesus Christ as our Ex- 
ample, to conform to whom is righteousness, to diverge 
from whom is sin, shall we come to the condition in 
which we can at all trust our own conceptions of what 
15* 


228 PILATE WASHING HIS HANDS. 


is right or wrong. First and fone Wiae: if we would 
have a conscience quickened and void of offence, let 
us live in the light of Christ’s face, and take Him as 
the embodiment of all things lovely and of good 
report. 

Then, again, let us cultivate, far more than the 
average Christian man of this day does, the habit of 


4 


careful scrutiny of ourselves. “Know thyself,” was — 


the proud saying of the ancient teacher. The only 
way to know what I am is to notice what I do. And 
the most of us give very little diligence to a careful 
examination, apart from passion or inclination, of 
the moral character of our habitual daily lives. 
White ants will eat the whole substance out of a bit of 
furniture, and leave it apparently perfectly sound and 
solid. I wonder how many of us have had micro- 
scopic millions of gnawing evils, working beneath 
cover, in our characters. As long as the form of 
godliness is left standing we know not, many of us, 
that all the inner heart and substance of it is gone, 
Look after yourselves; know yourselves; practise the 
forgotten habit of rigid self-examination, and you will 


be the less likely to be the fools of a perverted or 


drugged conscience. 

And make sure that when it does speak you listen 
to its slightest hints. “He that despiseth little 
things,” says one of the Apocryphal books, “shall fall 
by little and little.” The habit of thinking of any of 
our deeds that they are_too small to make it worth 
while to bring the big artillery to bear upon them, is 
the ruin of a great many men. There is nothing that 
so effectually silences the remonstrances of the inward 
voice as the habit of neglecting it. If you persistently 


# 


PILATE WASHING HIS HANDS. 229 


pick the buds off a plant, and do not let it either 
flower or fruit, you will kill it; and if you nip the 
shoots of conscience by neglecting ifs warnings, then 
the plant will, if it does not die, at least, as it were, 
retreat into its root, and lie there dormant, till—till 
it is transplanted by Death, and a new climate draws 
it out into activity. 

And so, dear brethren, keep close to Christ; culti- 
vate the habit of self-scrutiny ; obey the faintest voice 
of conscience ; and say to God, “Search me and try 
me, and see if there be any wicked way, and lead me 
in the way everlasting.” ; 

IIL—<Again, notice how here we get an illustration 
of the impossibility of wriggling out of responsibility. 

It is very interesting to observe how the parties 
concerned—the conspirators, if I may so say—in this 
great tragedy try to shuffle the blame off their own 
shoulders and to place it on others. Did you ever 
remark that Pilate almost verbally re-echoes the 
dialogue between Judas and the priests, which had 
just taken place? The traitor said: “I have betrayed 
the innocent blood.” Pilate said: “The blood of this 
innocent person.” ‘The rulers said: “ What is that to 
us? See thou to it.” Pilate gives them back their 
own word, though he did not know it, and says to 
them: “See ye to it.” And then they defiantly yelled 
out: “His blood be on us and on our children.” So 
all round, both in the attempt to get rid of, and in 
the awful willingness to accept, the responsibility of 
the deed, there is the consciousness expressed that 
there is a wrong somewhere, and that, whosoever was 
the doer of it, the consequences of it are fastened upon 
him for ever. 


230 PILATE WASHING HIS HANDS. 


So we may suggest that well-worn but most whole- 
some and needful thought, that if there is anything 
a man’s own, of which he cannot get rid, it is the bur- 
den of responsibility for his acts, and the inheritance 
of their consequences. Oh, there is nothing more 
solemn than that awful loneliness in which each soul 
of man lives, after all companionship, love and sym- 
pathy! We stretch out our hands and grasp loved 
hands, and yet there is a universe between the two 
that are nearest and most truly one. Islands in a 
great sea are we all. They tell us that no body is 
so closely compact but that there are films of air 
between the atoms of which it is composed, and 
hence all are more or less elastic. It is a parable 
of humanity. Each man dwells alone, and the in- 
tensest instance of his solitude is his unshared and 
untransferable and inevitable proprietorship in all 
that he has done. “If thou be wise, thou shalt be 
wise for thyself; and if thou scornest, thou alone 
shalt bear it.” Memory, conscience, position, habits, 
character—these, if there were no God at all, make it 
certain that “whatsoever a man soweth that shall 
shall he also reap.” And thus the responsibility of 
the deed lies only with the doer of it. You cannot 
shuffle it off upon your associates. A party of 
brigands fire at travellers). No man knows whose 
shot it was that killed, but every man that pulled — 
a trigger bears the guilt of the murder And so, 
though we may sin in company, we have to pay for 
it alone. You cannot establish your innocence by 
saying, like Adam, “The woman gave it to me and 
I did eat,” or, like Aaron, “The people are set on 
evil: they said unto me, Make us gods which shall go 


PILATE WASHING HIS HANDS. 231 


before us,” or, like Pilate, “I am innocent, see ye to 
it.” “God will send the bill to you.” 

IV.—And that brings me, lastly, to note the con- 
trast between present and future estimates of our 
acts. 

Pilate probably went back to Czsarea after the feast, 
thinking that he had got well out of what threatened 
to be an awkward business; and in all likelihood he 
never thought any more, either about that strange 
Prisoner, or about that stormy session in the Hall ot 
Judgment. That is a great deal more likely to be true 
than the legends which tell us of his being a prey to 
perpetual remorse. We have not to measure his guilt. 
It depends upon his knowledge, and his knowledge 
was very slight. Perhaps the worse thing that could 
be said about him was that he did not follow out dim 
impressions as to the elevation and mystery about his 
Prisoner ; and that he connived at what in his heart 
he knew to be a murder. He was far less guilty than 
those rulers; he was far less guilty than a great many 
of us are. But, for all that, one cannot help thinking 
of the shock of surprise which struck him when he 
passed beyond life, and ceased to be a governor and a 
judge, and stood at the bar of the Man whom he had 
condemned. 

Ah! brethren, the same reversal of present and 
future estimates will come about with many of us. 
«That fierce light which” flashes from the “throne ” 
will show the seaminess of many a life which looks 
fairly well by the candle-light of this present. And I 
pray you to ask yourselves the question, Do you think 
that you are ready for the revealing sunshine of “the 

- day that shall declare it” ? 


232 PILATE WASHING HIS HANDS. 


Pilate said, “See ye to it.” The mob yelled, “His 
blood be on us and on our children.” Jesus Christ 
prayed, “ Father, forgive them, for they know not what 
they do.” Guilt is not irremovable ; responsibility can 
be cancelled. The great blessing, the great mystery, 
of the Gospel is this, “The Lord hath laid on Him 
the iniquity of us all” And if we will put the 
burden of our sins upon His shoulders, He will bear 
it, and bear it away, and lay the light burden of His 
love upon us, 

Only, dear brethren, if we are to share in the power 
and blessedness of that wondrous Sacrifice for sin, we 
must take heed that Pilate’s words are not upon our 
lips. They who say “I am innocent” shut themselves 
out from the worth of the Sacrifice that was made 
only for the guilty. “If we say that we have no sin, 
we deceive ourselves.” “If we confess our sins, He 
is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to 
cleanse us from all unrighteousness,” ; 


— 


XXIII 
Two Retrospects of One Life. 


“ AND Jacob said unto Pharaoh, Few and evil have the days of the 
years of my life been.” —GEN. xlvii. 9. 

“The God which fed me all my life long unto this day; the angel 
which redeemed me from all evil.”—Gen. xlviii, 15, 16. 


Re SPHJHESE are two strangely different esti- 
AUK 6} Sy mates of the same life, to be taken by. 


vA \ | the same man. In the latter, Jacob 
~\eAy| categorically contradicts everything 

———=_ that he had said in the former. “Few 
and evil,” he said before Pharaoh. “All my life 
long,” “the angel which redeemed me from all evil,” 
he said on his deathbed. 

If he meant what he said when he spoke to 
Pharaoh, and characterized his life thus, he was 
wrong. He was possibly in a melancholy mood. 
Very naturally, the unfamiliar splendours of a court 
dazzled and bewildered the old man, accustomed to a 
quiet shepherd life down at Hebron. He had not 
come to see Pharaoh, he only cared to meet Joseph 
and, as was quite natural, his new and uncongenial 
surroundings depressed him. Possibly the words are 
only a piece of the etiquette of an Eastern court 


where it is the correct thing for the subject to de- 
preciate himself in all respects, as far inferior to the 


234 TWO RETROSPECTS OF ONE LIFE. 


prince. And there may be little more than conyen- 
tional humility in the words of my first text. But I 
am rather disposed to think that they express the 
true feeling of the moment, in a mood that passed 
and was followed by a more wholesome one. 

I put the two sayings side by side for the sake of 
gathering up one or two plain lessons from them, 

I—We have here two possible views of life, 

Now the key to the difference between these two 
statements and moods of feeling seems to me to be a 
very plain one. In the former of them there is 
nothing about God. It is all Jacob. In the latter we 
notice that there is a great deal more about God than 
about Jacob, and that determines the whole tone of 
the retrospect. In the first text Jacob speaks of 
“the days of the years of my pilgrimage,” “the days 
of the years of my life,” and so on, without a syllable 
about anything except the purely earthly view of 
life. Of course, when you shut out God, the past is 
all dark enough, grey and dismal, like the landscape 
on some cloudy day, where the woods stand black, 
and the rivers creep melancholy through colourless 
fields, and the sky is grey and formless above. Let 
the sun come out, and the river flashes into a golden 
mirror, and the woods are alive with twinkling lights 
and shadows, and the sky stretches a blue pavilion 
above them, and all the birds sing. Let God into 
your life, and its whole complexion and characteristics 
change. The man who sits whining and complaining 
when he has shut out the thought of a Divine 
presence, finds that everything alters when he brings 
that in. 

And, then, look at the two particulars on which the 


TWO RETROSPECTS OF ONE LIFE. 235 


patriarch dwells, “TI am only 130 years old,” he says, 
@ mere infant compared with Abraham and Isaac! 
How did he know he was not going to live to be as 
old as either of them? And “if his days were evil,” 
as he said, was it not a good thing that they were few ? 
But, instead of that, he finds reasons for complaint in 
the brevity of the life which, if it were as evil as he 
made it out to be, must often have seemed wearisomely 
long, and dragged very slowly. Now, both things are 
true—life is short, life is long. Time is elastic—you 
can stretch it or you can contract it. It is short com- 
pared with the duration of God; it is short, as one of 
the Psalms put it pathetically, as compared with this 
Nature round us. “The earth abideth for ever”; we 
are strangers upon it, and there is no abiding for us. 
It is short as compared with the capacities and powers 
of the creatures that possess it; but, oh! if we think 
of our days as a series of gifts of God, if we look upon 
them, as Jacob looked upon them when he was sane, 
as being one continued shepherding by God, they 
stretch out into blessed Jength. Life is long enough it 
it manifests that God takes care of us, and if we learn 
that Hedoes. Life is long enough if it serves to build 
up a God-pleasing character. 

It is beautiful to see how the thought of God enters 
into the dying man’s remembrances in the shape 
which was natural to him, regard being had to his 
own daily avocations. For the word translated “fed” 
means much more than supplied with nourishment. 
It is the word for doing the office of shepherd, and we 
oust not forget, if we want to understand its beauty, 
that Jacob’s sons said: “Thy servants are shepherds; 
both we and also our fathers.” So this man, in the 


236 TWO RETROSPECTS OF ONE LIFE, 


solitude of his pastoral life, and whilst living amongst 
his woolly people, who depended upon his guidance 
and care, had learnt many a lesson as to how gra- 
ciously, and tenderly, and constantly fed, and led, and 
protected, and fostered by God were the creatures of 
His hand. 

It was he, I suppose, who first gave to religious 
thought that metaphor which has survived temple, 
and sacrifice, and priesthood, and will survive even 
earth itself; for “I am the Good Shepherd” is true 
to-day as when first spoken by Jesus, and “the Lamb 
which is in the midst of the throne shall lead them,” 
and be their Shepherd, when the flock is carried to 
the upper pastures, and the springs that never fail. 
The life which has brought us that thought of a 
Shepherd-God has been long enough; and the days 
which have been so expanded as to contain a con- 
tinuous series of His benefits and protections need 
never be remembered as “few,” whatever is the arith- 
metic that is applied to them. 

The other contradiction is equally eloquent and 
significant. “Few and evil” have my days been, said 
Jacob, when he was not thinking about God; but, 
when he remembered the Angel of the Presence, that 
mysterious person with whom he had wrestled at 
Peniel, and whose finger had lamed the thigh while 
his lips proclaimed a blessing, his view changed, and 
instead of talking about “evil days,” he says, “the 
angel that redeemed me from all evil.” Yes, his life 
had been evil, whether by that we mean sorrowful or 
sinful, and the sorrows and the sins had been closely 
connected. A sorely tried man he had been. Far 
away back in the past had been his banishment from 


TWO RETROSPECTS OF ONE LIFE. 237 


home; his disappointment and hard service with the 
churlish Laban; the misbehaviour of his sons; the 
death of Rachel—that wound which was never 
staunched—and then the twenty years’ mourning for 
Rachel’s son, the heir of his inheritance. These were 
his evils; his sins were as many; for every one of the 
sorrows, except perhaps that chiefest of them all, had 
_its root in some piece of duplicity, dishonesty, or 
failure. But after all he lived to see Joseph. The 
evils had stormed over him, but he survived still. 
And so, at the end, he says: “The angel... re- 
deemed me from evil, though it smo.e me. Sorrow 
became chastisement, and I was purged of my sin 
by my calamities. The sorrows are past, like some 
raging inundation that comes up for a night over the 
land and then subsides; but the blessing of fertility 
which it brought in its tawny waves abides with me 
yet. Joseph is by my side. I had not thought to 
see thy face, and God hath showed me the face of thy 
seed.” That sorrow is over. Rachel’s grave is still by 
the wayside, and that sharpest of pangs has wrought 
with others to purify character. Jacob has been 
tried by sorrows; he has been cleansed from sins. 
“The angel delivered me from all evil” So, dear 
friends, sorrow is not evil, if it helps to strip us from 
the evil that we love; and the ills that we bear are 
good if they alienate our affections from the ills that 
we do. . 

IL—Secondly, note the wisdom and the duty of 
taking the completer and brighter view. 

These first words of Jacob are very often quoted 
as if they were the pattern of the kind of thing 
people ought to say: “Few and evil have been the 


238 TWO RETROSPECTS OF ONE LIFE. 


days of the years of my pilgrimage”; that is a text 
from which many sermons have been preached with 
approbation of the pious resignation expressed in it. 
But it does not seem to me that that is the tone of 
Jacob. If the man believed what he said, then he was 
very ungrateful and short-sighted, though there were 
excuses to be made for him under the circumstances. 
If the days had been evil, he had made them so. 

But the point which I wish to make now is, that it 
is largely a matter for our own selection which of the 
two views of our lives we take. We may make our 
choice whether we shall fix our attention on the 
brighter or on the darker constituents of our past. 

Suppose a wall papered with paper of two colours— 
one black, say, and the other gold. You can work 
your eye and adjust the focus of vision, so that you 
may see either a black background or a gold one. In 


the one case the prevailing tone is gloomy, relieved by — 


an occasional touch of brightness; and in the other 
it is brightness, heightened by a background of dark- 
ness. And so we can do with life, fixing attention on 
its sorrows, and hugging ourselves in the contempla- 


tion of these, with a kind of morbid satisfaction, or 


bravely and thankfully and submissively and wisely 
resolving that we will rather seek to learn what God 
means by darkness, and not forgetting to look at the 
unenigmatical blessings and plain, obvious mercies 
that make up so much of our lives. We have to 
govern memory, as well as other faculties, by Christian 
principle. We have to apply the plain teaching of 
Christian truth to our sentimental, and often unwhole- 
some, contemplations of the past. There is enough in 
all our lives to make material for plenty of whining 


TWO RETROSPECTS OF ONE LIFE. 239 


and complaining, if we choose to take hold of them by 
that handle. And there is enough in all our lives 
to make us ashamed of one murmuring word, if we 
are devout and wise and believing enough to lay hold 
of them by that. Remember you can make your view 
of your life either a bright one or a dark one, and there 
will be facts for both; but the facts that feed melan- . 
choly are partial and superficial, and the facts that 
exhort, “ Rejoice in the Lord alway; and again I say 
Rejoice,” are deep and fundamental. 

III.—So, lastly, note how blessed a thing it is when 
the last look is the happiest. 

When you are amongst the mountains or when you 
are very near them they look barren enough, rough, 
stony, steep. When you get away from them, and 
look at them across the plain, they lie blue in the 
distance; and the violet shadows and golden lights 
upon them and the white peaks above make a 
dream of beauty. Whilst we are in the midst of the 
struggle, we are often tempted to think that things go 
hardly with us and that the road is very rough. But 
if we keep near our dear Lord, and hold by His hand, 
and try to shape our lives in accordance with His will 
—whatever be their outward circumstances and 
texture—then we may be very sure of this, that when 
the end comes, and we are far enough away from 
some of the sorrows to see what they lead to and 
blossom into, then we shall be able to say, It was all 
very good, and to thank Him for all the way by which 
the Lord our God has led us, 

In the same conversation in which the patriarch, 
rising to the height of a prophet and organ of Divine 
revelation, gives this his dying testimony of the faith- 


240 TWO RETROSPECTS OF ONE LIFE. 


fulness of God, and declares that he has been deli- 
vered from all evil, he recurs to the central sorrow of 
his life, and speaks, though in calm words, of that 
day when he buried Rachel by “Ephrath, which is 
Bethel.” But the pain had passed and the good was _ 
present to him. And so, leaving life, he left it accord- 
ing to his own word, “satisfied with favour, and full of 
the blessing of the Lord.” So we in our turns may, at 
the last, hope that what we know not now will largely 
be explained; and may seek to anticipate our dying 
verdict by a living confidence, in the midst of our 
toils and our sorrows, that “all things work a 
for good to them that love God.” 


XXIV. 


The Two Guests, 


* His anger endureth kut a moment, in His favour is life: weep- 
ing may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.” — 
Ps, xxx. 6, 


WORD or two of exposition is necessary 
in order to bring out the force of this 
verse, There-is an obvious antithesis 
in the first part of it, between “His 
anger” and “His favour.” Probably 

there is a similar antithesis between “a moment” and 

“life.” For although the word rendered “life” does 

not unusually mean a lifetime, it may have that 

signification, and the evident intention of contrast 
seems to require it here. So, then, the meaning of 

the first part of my text is, “the anger lasts for a 

moment; the favour lasts for a lifetime.” The per- 

petuity of the one and the brevity of the other are 
the Psalmist’s thought. 

Then, if we pass to the second part of the text, you 
will observe that there is there also a double 
antithesis.. “Weeping” is set over against “joy”; 
the “night” against the “morning.” And the first of 
these two contrasts is the more striking if we observe 
that the word “joy” means, literally, “a joyful shout,” 

16 


242 THE TWO GUESTS. 


so that the voice which was lifted in weeping is 
conceived of as now being heard in exultant praise. 
Then, still further, the expression “may endure” 
literally means “come to lodge.” So that Weeping 
and Joy are personified. Two guests come; one, 
dark-robed and approaching at the fitting season 
for such, “the night.” ‘ihe other bright, coming with 
all things fresh and sunny, in the dewy morn. The 
guest of the night is Weeping; the guest that takes 
its place in the morning is Gladness. 

The two clauses, then, of my text suggest substan- 
tially the same thought, and that is the persistence 
of joy and the transitoriness of sorrow. The one 
speaks of the succession of emotions in the man; the 
other, of the successive aspects of the Divine dealings 
which occasion these. The whole is a leaf out of the 
Psalmist’s own experience. The psalm commemorates 
his deliverance from some affliction, probably a 
sickness. That is long gone past; and the tears that 
it caused have long since dried up. But this shout of 
joy of his has lasted all these centuries, and is like to 
be immortal. Well for us if we can read our life’s 
story with the same cheery confidence as he did his, 
and have learned like him to discern what is the 
temporary. and what the permanent element in our 
experience! 

I.—Note, first, the proportion of joy and sorrow in 
an ordinary life. 

The Psalmist expresses, as I have said, the same 
idea in both clauses. In the former the “anger” is 
contemplated not so much as an element in the 
Divine mind, as in its manifestations in the Divine 
dealings. I shall have a word or two, presently, to 


THE TWO GUESTS. 243 


say about the Scriptural conception of the “ anger” of 
God, and its relation to the “favour” of God; but for 
the present I take the two clauses as being sub- 
stantially equivalent. 

Now is it true—is it not true—that, if a man 
rightly regards the proportionate duration of these 
two diverse elements in his life, he must come to the 
conclusion that the one is continuous and the other is 
but transitory? A thunderstorm is very short when 
measured against the long summer day in which it 
crashes; and very few days have them. It must be a 
bad climate where half the days are rainy. If we 
were to take the chart and prick out upon it the line 
of our voyage, we should find that the spaces in which 
the weather was tempestuous were brief and few 
indeed as compared with those in which it was sunny 
and calm. 

But, then, man looks before and after, and has the 
terrible gift that by anticipation and by memory he 
ean prolong the sadness. The proportion of solid 
matter needed to colour the Irwell is very little in com- 
parison with the whole of the stream. But the current 
carries it, and a trace of dye-stuff will stain miles 
of the turbid stream. Memory and anticipation beat 
the metal thin, and make it cover an enormous space. 
And the misery is that, somehow, we have better 
memories for sad hours than for joyful ones, and it is 
easier to get accustomed to “blessings,” as we call 
them, and to lose the poignancy of their sweetness 
because they become familiar, than it is to apply the 
same process to our sorrows, and thus to take the 
edge oif them. The rose’s prickles are felt in the flesh 
longer than its fragrance lives in the nostrils, or its 

16* 


- 


244 THE TWO GUESTS. 


hue in the eye. Men have long memories for their 
pains as compared with their remembrance of their 
SOLroWS. a8 

So it comes to be a piece of very homely, well-worn, 
and yet always needful, practical counsel to try not to 
magnify and prolong grief, nor to minimize and. 
abbreviate gladness. We can make our lives, to our 
own thinking, very much what we will. We cannot 
directly regulate our emotions, but we can regulate 
them, because it is in our own power to determine 
which aspect of our life we shall by preference con- 
template. 

We can choose, to a large extent, what we shall 
conceive our lives to be; and so we can very largely 
modify their real character. 


‘¢ There's nothing either good or bad 
But thinking makes it so,” 


They who will can surround themselves with persistent 
gladness, and they who will can gather about them 
the thick folds of an ever-brooding and enveloping 
sorrow. Courage, cheerfulness, thankfulness, buoyancy, 
resolution, are all closely connected with a sane esti- 
mate of the relative proportions of the bright and the 
dark in a human life. 

II.—And now consider, secondly, the inclusion of 
the “moment” in the “ life,” 

I do not know that the Psalmist thought of that 
when he gave utterance to my text, but whether 
he did it or not, it is true that the “moment” 
spent in “anger” is a part of the “life” that is 
spent in the “favour.” Just as within the circle of 
a life lies each of its moments, the same principle 


THE TWO GUESTS. 245 


of inclusion may be applied to the other contrast 
presented here. For as the “moment” is a part of 
the “life,” the “anger” is a part of the love. The 
“favour” holds the “anger” within itself, for the 
true Scriptural idea of that terrible expression and 
terrible fact, the “wrath of God,” is that it is the 
necessary aversion of a perfectly pure and holy 
love from that which does not correspond to it- 
self. So, though sometimes the two may be set 
against each other, yet at bottom, and in reality, 
they are one, and the “anger” is but a mode in 
which the “favour” manifests itself. God’s love is 
plastic, and, if thrown back upon itself, grieved and 
wounded and rejected, becomes the “anger” which 
ignorant men sometimes seem to think it contradicts 
There is no more antagonism between these two ideas 
when they are applied to God, than when they are 
applied to you parents in your relations to a disobe- 
dient child. You know, and your child knows, that if 
there were no love there would be little“anger.” Neither 
of you suppose that an irate parent is an unloving 
parent. “If ye. being evil, know how,” in dealing 
with your children, to blend wrath and love, “how 
much more shall your Father which is in heaven” 
be one and the same Father when His love mani- 
fests itself in chastisement and when it expands itself 
in blessings. 

Thus we come to the truth that breathes uniformity 
and simplicity through all the various methods of the 
Divine hand, that howsoever He changes and reverses 
His dealings with us, their motive is one and the same. 
You may get two diametrically opposite motions out of 
the same machine. The same power will send one wheel 


246 . THE TWO GUESTS. 


revolving from right to left, and another from left to 
right, but they are co-operant to grind out at the far 
end the one product. It is the same revolution of the 
earth that brings blessed lengthening days and grow- 
ing summer, and that cuts short the sun’s course and 
brings declining days and increasing cold. It is the 
same motion which hurls a comet close to the burning 
sun, and sends it wandering away out into the fields 
of astronomical space, beyond the ken of telescope, 
and almost beyond the reach of thought. And so 
one uniform Divine purpose—the favour which uses 
the anger—fills the life, and there are no interruptions, 
howsoever brief, to the steady, continuous flow of His 
outpoured blessings. All is love and favour. Anger 
is masked love, and sorrow has the same source and 
mission as joy. It takes all sorts of weathers to make 
a year, and all tend to the same issue of ripened 
harvests and full barns. Oh! brethren, if we under- 
stood that God means something better for us than 
happiness, even likeness to Himself, we should under- 
stand better how our deepest sorrows and bitterest 
tears, and the wounds that penetrate deepest into our 
bleeding hearts, all come from the same motive, and 
are directed to the same end as their most joyful con- 
traries. One thing the Lord desires, that we may be 
partakers of His holiness And so we may venture 
to give an even deeper meaning to the Psalmist’s 
words than he intended, and recognize that the 
“moment” is an integral part of the “life,” and the 
“anger” a mode of the manifestation of the “favour.” 

III.—Lastly, notice the conversion of the sorrow 
into joy. 

I have already explained the picturesque image of 


THE TWO GUESTS. 247 


the last part of my text, which demands a little 
further consideration. There are two figures presented 
before us, the dark-robed and the bright-garmented. 
The one is the guest of the night, the other is the 
guest of the morning. The verb which occurs in the 
first clause of the second half of my text is not 
repeated in the second, and so the words may be 
taken in two ways. They may either express how 
Joy, the morning guest, comes, and turns out 
the evening visitant, or they may suggest how 
we took Sorrow in when the night fell, to sit by 
the fireside, but when morning dawned—who is this, 
sitting in her place, smiling as we look at her? 
It is Sorrow transfigured, and her name is changed 
into Joy. Hither the substitution or the transfor- 
mation may be supposed to be in the Psalmist’s 
mind. 

Both are true. No human heart, however wounded, 
continues always to bleed. Some gracious vegetation 
creeps over the most utter ruin. The roughest edges 
are smoothed by time. Vitality asserts itself; other 
interests have a right to be entertained and are enter- 
tained. The recuperative powers come into play, and 
pangs depart and the poignancy is softened. The 
cutting edge gets blunt on even poisoned spears by 
the gracious influences of time. The nightly guest, 
Sorrow, slips away, and, ere we know, another sits in 
her place. Some of us try to fight against that 
merciful process, and seem to think that it is a merit 
to continue, by half-artificial means, the first sharpness 
of pain, and that it is treason to some dear remem- 
brances to let life have its way, and to-day have its 
rights. That is to set ourselves against the dealings 


ae 


248 THE TWO GUESTS. 


of God, and to refuse to forgive Him for what His 
love has done for us. 

But the other thought seems to me to be even 
more beautiful, and probably to be what was in the 
Psalmist’s mind—viz., the transformation of the evil, 
sorrow itself, into the radiant form of joy. A prince 
comes to a poor man’s hovel, is hospitably received in 
the darkness, and, being received and welcomed, in 
the morning slips off the rags and appears as he is. 
Sorrow is Joy disguised. | 

If it is accepted, if the will submits, if the heart lets 
itself be untwined, that its tendrils may be coiled 
closer round the heart of God, then the transformation 
is sure to come, and joy will dawn on those who have 
done rightly—that is, submissively and thankfully— 
by their sorrows. It will not be a joy like what the 
world calls joy—loud-voiced, boisterous, ringing with 
idiot laughter; but it will be pure, and deep, and 
sacred, and permanent. A white lily is better than 
a flaunting peony, and the joy into which sorrow 
accepted turns is pure, and refining, and good. 

So, brethren, remember that the richest vintages are 
grown on the rough slopes of the voleano, and lovely 
flowers blow at the glacier’s edge; and all our troubles, 
great and little, may be converted into gladnesses 
if we accept them as God meant them. Only they 
must be so accepted if they are to be thus changed. 
But there may be some hearts recoiling from much 
that I have said now, and thinking to them- 
selves, “Ah! there are two kinds of sorrows. There 
are those that can be cured, and there are those that 
cannot. What have you to say to me who have 
to bleed from an immedicable wound till the end of 


THE TWO QUESTS. 249 


my life?” Well, I have to say this—look beyond 
earth’s dim dawns to that morning when the Sun of 
Righteousness shall arise to them that love His name, 
with healing in His wings. If we have to carry loads 
on aching backs till the end, be sure that when the 
night which is far spent is over, and the day which is 
at hand hath broken, every raindrop will be turned 
into a flashing rainbow when it is smitten by the level 
light, and every sorrow rightly borne be represented 
by a special and particular joy. 

Only, brother, if our life is to be spent in His favour, 
it must be spent in His fear. And if our cares and 
troubles and sorrows and losses are to be transfigured 
hereafter, then we must keep very near Jesus Christ, 
who has promised to us that His joy will remain with 
us, and that our sorrows shall be turned into joys. If 
we trust to Him, the voices that have been raised in 
weeping will be heard in gladness, and earth’s minor 
will be transposed by the great Master of the music 
into the key of Heaven’s jubilant praise. If only “ we 
look not at the things seen, but at the things which 
are not seen,” then “our light affliction, which is but 
for a moment, will work out for us a far more exceed- 
ing and eternal weight of glory” ; and the weight will 
be no burden, but will bear up those who are privileged 
to bear it, 


te 


XXV. 
The Waves of Time. 


“THE times that went over him.”—1 CHRON. xxix. 80. 


<A,|HIS is a fragment from the chronicler’s 
(| close of his life of King David. He 
is referring in it to other written 
authorities in which there are fuller — 

=“ particulars concerning his hero; and 
he says, “the Acts of David the King, first and last, 
behold they are written in the book of Samuel the 
seer . . . with all his reign and his might, and 
the times that went over him, and over all Israel, and 
over all the kingdoms of the countries.” 

Now I have ventured to isolate these words, because 
they seem to me to suggest some very solemn and 
stimulating thoughts about the true nature of life. 
They refer, originally, to the strange vicissitudes and 
extremes of fortune and condition which character- 
ized, so dramatically and remarkably, the life of King 
David. Shepherd boy, soldier, court favourite, out- 
law, freebooter and all but brigand; rebel, king, 
fugitive, saint, sinner, psalmist, penitent—he lived a 
life full of strongly marked alterations, and “the 
times that went over him” were singularly separate 
and different from each other. There are very few 


THE WAVES OF TIME. 251 


of us who have such chequered lives as his. But the 
principle which dictated the selection by the chronicler 
of this somewhat strange phrase is true about the 
life of every man. 

I.—Note, first, “the times” which make up each 
life. 

Now, by the phrase here the writer does not merely 
mean the succession of moments, but he wishes to 
emphasize the view that these are epochs, sections of 
“time,” each with its definite characteristics and its 
special opportunities, unlike the rest that lie on either 
side of it. The great broad field of time is portioned 
out, like the strips of peasant allotments, which show 
a little bit here with one kind of crop upon it, 
bordered by another tiny morsel of ground, bearing 
another kind of crop. So the whole is patchy, and 
yet all harmonizes in effect if we look at it from high 
enough up. Thus each life is made up of a series, 
not merely of successive moments, but of well-marked 
epochs, each of which has its own character, its own 
responsibilities, its own opportunities, in each of which 
there is some special work to be done, some grace to 
be cultivated, some lesson to be learned, some sacrifice 
to be made; and if it is let slip it never comes back 
any more. “It might have been once, and we missed 
it, lost it for ever.” The times pass over us, and every 
single portion has its own errand tous. Unless we 
are wide awake we let it slip, and are the poorer to all 
eternity for not having had in our heads the eyes 
of the wise man which “discern both time and 
judgment.” It isthe same thought which is suggested 
by the well-known words of the cynical book of 
Ecclesiastes—“ To every thing there is a season and a 


252 THE WAVES OF TIME. 


time ”—an opportunity, a definite period—“for every 
purpose that is under the sun.” It is the same 
thought which is suggested by Paul's words, “ As we 
have therefore opportunity, let us do good to all men, 
In due season we shall reap if we faint not.” There 
is a time for weeping and a time for laughing, a time 
for building up and a time for casting down. It is 
the same thought of life, and its successive epochs of 
opportunity never returning, which finds expression 
in the threadbare lines about “a tide in the affairs of 
men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune,” 
and, neglected, condemns the rest of a career to be 
hemmed in among creeks and shallows. 

Through all the variety of human occupations, each 
moment comes to us with its own special mission, and 
yet, alas! to far too many of-us the alternations do not 
suggest the question, What is it that I am hereby 
called upon to be or todo? What is the lesson that 
present circumstances are meant to teach, and the 
grace that my present condition is meant to force me 
to cultivate or exhibit? There is one point, as it were, 
upon the road where we may catch a view far away 
into the distance, and, if we are not on the look-out 
when we come there, we shall never get that glimpse 
at any other point along the path. The old alchemists 
used. to believe that there was what they called the 
“moment of projection,’ when, into the heaving 
molten mass in their crucible, if they dropped the 


magic powder, the whole would turn into gold; an- 


instant later, and there would be explosion and death; 
an instant earlier, and there would be no effect. 

And so God’s moments come to us; every one of 
them—if we had eyes to see and hands to grasp—a 


THE WAVES OF TIME. 253 


crisis, affording opportunity for something for which 
all eternity will not afford a second opportunity, if the 
moment be let pass. “The times went over him.” 
And your life and mine is parcelled out into seasons 
which have their special vocation for and message 
to us. 

How solemn that makes our life! How it destroys 
the monotony that we sometimes complain of! How 
it heightens the low things and magnifies the 
apparently small ones! And how it calls upon us for 
a sharpened attention, that we miss not any of the 
blessings and gifts which God is meaning to bestow 
upon us, through the ministry of each moment! How 
it calls upon us for not only sharpened attention, 
but for a desire to know the meaning of each of the 
hours and of every one of His providences! And 
how it bids us, as the only condition of understanding 
the times, so as to know what we ought to do, keep 
eur hearts in close union with Him, and ourselves 
ever standing, as becomes servants, girded and ready 
for work; and with the question on our lips and in 
our hearts, “ Lord, what wouldst Thou have me to do; 
and what wouldst Thou have me todo now?” The 
lesson of the day has to be learned in the day, and at 
the moment when it is put in practice. 

Il.— Another thought suggested by this text is, the 
power that moves the times. 

As far as my text represents—and it is not intended 
to go to the bottom of everything—these times flow 
on over aman asa river might. But is there any 
power that moves the stream? Unthinking and 
sense-bound men—and we are all such, in the 
measure in which we are unspiritual—are contented 


254 TBE WAVES OF TIME. 


simply to accept the mechanical flow of the stream of 
time. We are all tempted not to look behind the 
moving screen to see the force that turns the wheel 
on which the painted scene is stretched. But, oh. 
how dreary a thing it is if all that we have to say 
about life is “ The times pass over us,” like the blind 
rush of a stream, or the movement of the sea around 
our coasts, eating away here and depositing its spoils 
there, sometimes taking and sometimes giving, but 
all the work of mere eyeless and purposeless chance 
or of natural causes. 

Oh! brethren, there is nothing more dismal nor 
paralyzing than the contemplation of the flow of the 
times over our heads, unless we see in their flow some- 
thing far more than itself. 

It is very beautiful to notice that this same phrase, 
or at least the essential part of it, is employed by 
David himself in one of his Psalms, with a very signi- 
ficant addition. Hesays, “My times arein Thy hand.” 
So, then, the passage of our epochs over us is not 
merely the aimless flow of a stream, but the movement 
of a current which God directs. Therefore, if at any 
time it goes over our heads and seems to overwhelm 
us, we can look up through the transparent water, and 
say, “ Thy waves and Thy billows have gone over me,” 
and so I die not of suffocation beneath them. God 
orders the times, and therefore, though, as the bitter 
ingenuity of Ecclesiastes, on the look-out for proofs 
of the vanity of life, complained in a one-sided view, 
as an aggravation of man’s lot that there is a time for 
everything, yet that aspect of change is not its deepest 
or truest. True it is that sometimes birth and 
sometimes death, sometimes joy and sometimes 


bu 
—_— — « 


THE WAVES OF TIME. 255 


sorrow, sometimes building up and sometimes 
casting down, follow each other with monotonous 
uniformity of variety, and seem to reduce life toa 
perpetual heaping up of what is as painfully to be cast 
down the next moment, like the pitiless sport of the 
wind amongst the sandhills of the desert. But the 
fertility is only apparent, and the changes are not 
meant to occasion man’s “misery to be great upon 
him,” as Ecclesiastes says they do. The diversity of 
the “ times ” comes from a unity of purpose; and all 
the various methods of the Divine providence exer- 
cised upon us have one unchanging intention. The 
meaning of all the “times” is that they should bring 
us nearer to God, and fill us more full of His power 
and grace. The web is one, however various may be 
the pattern wrought upon the tapestry. So the 
varying times do all tend to one great issue, 
Therefore let us seek to pursue, in all varying cir- 
cumstances, the one purpose which God has in 
them all; which the Apostle states to be “even 
your sanctification,” and let us understand how 
summer and winter, springtime and harvest, tempest 
and fair weather, do together make up the year, and 
ensure the springing of the seed and the fruitfulness 
of the stalk. 

III.—Lastly, let me remind you, too, how eloquently 
the words of my text suggest the transiency of all 
the “times.” 

They “passed over him” as the wind through an 
archway, that whistles and cometh not again. The 
old, old thought, so threadbare and yet always so 
solemnizing and pathetic, which we know so well that 
we forget it, and are so sure of that it has little effect 


256 THE WAVES OF TIME. 


on life, the old, old thought—* this too will pass 
away ”—underlies the phrase of my text. 

How blessed it is, brethren, to cherish that whole- 
some sense of the transiency of things here below 
only those who live under its habitual power can 
fairly estimate. It is thought to be melancholy. We 
are told that it spoils joys and kills interest, and I 
know not what beside. It spoils no joys that ought 
to be joys, It kills no interests that are-not on other 
grounds unworthy to be cherished. Contrariwise, by 
a strange paradox, the more fully we are penetrated 
with the persistent conviction of the transiency 
of the things seen and temporal, the greater they 
become. For then only are they seen in their true 
magnitude and nobility, in their true solemnity and 
importance, as having a bearing on the things that are 
eternal, Time is “the ceaseless lackey of eternity,” 
and the things that pass over us may become, like the 
waves of the sea, the means of bearing us to the un- 
moving shore. Oh, if only in the midst of joys and 
sorrows, of heavy tasks and corroding cares, of weary 
work and wounded spirits, we could feel that they are 
“but for a moment,” all would be different, and joy 
would come, and strength would come, and patience 
would come, and every grace would come, in the train 


of the wholesome conviction that “here we have 


no continuing city.” 

Cherish the thought. It will spoil nothing the 
spoiling of which will be a loss. It will heighten 
everything the possession of which is a gain. It will 
teach us to trust in the darkness, and to believe in 
the light. And when the times are dreariest, and 
frost binds the ground, we shall say, “ If winter comes, 


THE WAVES OF TIME. ; 257 


can spring be far behind?” The times roll over us, 
like the seas that break upon some isolated rock, and 
when the tide has fallen, and the vain flood has sub- 
sided, the rock is there. If the world helps us to God, 
we need not sorrow though it passes, and the fashion 
thereof. 

But do not let us forget that my very text in its 
connection may teach us another thought. The tran- 
sitory “times that went over” Israel's king are 
recorded imperishably on the pages here. And so, 
though condensed into narrow space, the record of 
the fleeting moments lives for ever. And “the books 
shall be opened, and men shall be judged according 
to their works.” We are writing an imperishable 
record by our fleeting deeds. Half a dozen pages 
carry all the story of that stormy life of David. 
It takes a thousand rose-trees to make a vial full of 
essence of roses, The record and issues of life will be 
condensed into small compass, but the essence of it is 
eternal, We shall find it again, and have to drink as 
we have brewed when we get yonder. “Be not 
deceived, God is not mocked, for whatsoever a man 
soweth that shall he also reap.” There is a time to 
“sow,” and that is the present life; “and there is 
a time to reap” the fruits of our sowing, and that 
is the time when times have ended, and eternity is 
here. ; 


ORCI 


17 


XXVL 
The Church and Social Evils. 


“TT came to pass, when I heard these words, that I sat down and 
wept, and mourned certain days, and fasted, and prayed before 
the God ef heaven.”—-NEHEMIAH i. 4, 


INETY years had passed since the re- 
‘+ turning exiles had arrived at Jerusalem. 
>4 They had encountered many difficulties 

RS which had marred their progress and 
EN as cooled their enthusiasm. The Temple, 
indeed, was rebuilt, but Jerusalem lay in ruins, and 
its walls remained as they had been left, by Nebuchad- 


nezzar’s siege, some century and a half before. A little — 


party of pious pilgrims had gone from Persia to the 
city, and had come back to Shushan with a sad story 
of weakness and despondency, affliction and hostility. 
One of the travellers had a brother, a youth named 
Nehemiah, who was a cupbearer in the court of the 
Persian king. Living in a palace, and surrounded 
with luxury, his heart was with his brethren; and the 
ruins of Jerusalem were dearer to him than the pomp 
of Shushan. 

My text tells how the young cupbearer was affected 
by the tidings, and how he wept and prayed before 
God. The accurate dates given in this book show that 


THE CHURCH AND SOCIAL EVILS. 259 


this period of brooding contemplation of the miseries 
of his brethren lasted for four months. Then he took 
a great resolution, flung up brilliant prospects, identi- 
fied himself with the afflicted colony, and asked for 
leave to go and share, and, if it might be, to redress, 
the sorrows which had made so deep a dint upon his 
heart. 

Now I think that this vivid description, drawn by 
himself, of the emotions excited in Nehemiah by his 
countrymen’s sorrows, which influenced his whole 
future, contains some very plain lessons for Christian 
people, the observance of which is every day becoming 
more imperative by reason of the drift of public 
opinion, and the new prominence which is being 
given to so-called “social questions.” I want to 
gather up one or two of these lessons for you this 
morning. 

I—First, then, note the plain Christian duty of 
sympathetic contemplation of surrounding sorrows. 

Nehemiah might have made a great many very 
good excuses for treating lightly the tidings that his 
brother had brought him. He might have said: 
“Jerusalem is a long way off. I have my own work 
to do; it is no part of my business to rebuild the 
walls of Jerusalem, I am the king’s cupbearer. They 
went with their eyes open, and experience has shown 
that the people who knew when they were well off, 
and stayed where they were, were a great deal wiser.” 
These were not his excuses. He let the tidings fill 
his heart, and burn there. 

Now, the first condition of sympathy is knowledge; 
and the second is attending to what we do know. 
Nehemiah had probably known, in a kind of vague 

iz 


260 THE CHURCH AND SOCIAL EVILS. 


way, for many a day, how things were going in 
Palestine. Communications between it and Persia 
were not so difficult but that there would come plenty 
of Government despatches; and a man at head- 
quarters, who had the ear of the monarch, was not 
likely to be ignorant of what was going on in that 
part of his dominions. But there is all the difference 
between hearing vague general‘ reports and sitting 
and hearing your own brother tell you what he had 
seen with his own eyes. So the impression which 
had existed before was all inoperative, until it was 
kindled by attention to the facts which all the time 
had been, in some degree, known. 

Now, how many of us are there that keno 
do not know—what is going on round about us in the 
slums and back courts of this city? How many of us 
are there that are habitually ignorant of what we 
actually know, because we never, as we say, “give 
heed” to it. “I did net think of that” is a very poor 
excuse about matters concerning which there is know- 
ledge, whether there is thought or not. And go I 
want to press upon all'you Christian people the plain 
duty of knowing what you do know, and of giving an 
ample place in your thoughts to the stark, staring 
facts around us. 

Why! loads of people at present seem to think that 
the miseries, and hideous vices, and sodden immorality — 
and utter heathenism, which are found down amongst 
the foundations of every civic community are as 
indispensable to progress as the noise of the wheels 
of a train is to its advancement, or as the bilge- 
water in a wooden ship is to keep its seams tight. So 
we frate about “civilization,” which properly means 


THE CHURCH AND SOCIAL EVILS, 261 


bringing men into the state of living in cities. 
If agglomerating people into these great communities, 
which make so awful a feature of modern life, 
be necessarily attended by such abominations as 
we live amongst, and never think about, then, better 
that there had never been civilization in such a sense 
at all. Every consideration of communion with and 
conformity to Jesus Christ, of loyalty to His words, of 
_a true sense of brotherhood, and of lower things— 
such as self-interest—every consideration demands 
that Christian people shall take to their hearts, in a 
fashion that the churches have never done yet, “the 
condition of England question,” and shall ask, “ Lord! 
what wouldst Thou have me to do?” 

I do not care to enter upon controversy raised by 
recent utterances, the motive of which may be worthy 
of admiration, though the expression cannot be ac- 
quitted of the charge of exaggeration, to the effect 
that the Christian churches as a whole have been 
careless of the condition of the people. It is not true 
in its absolute sense. I suppose that, taking the 
country over, the majority of the members of, at all 
events, the Nonconformist churches and congregations 
are in receipt of weekly wages or belong to the upper 
ranks of the working classes, and that the lever which 
has lifted them to these upper ranks has been God’s 
Gospel. I suppose it will be admitted that the past 
indifference with which we are charged belonged to 
the whole community, and that the new sense of 
responsibility which has marked, and _blessedly 
marked, recent years, is largely owing to political and 
other causes which have lately come into operation. 
I suppose it will not be denied that, to a very large 


262 THE CHURCH AND SOCIAL EVILS. 


extent, any efforts which have been made in the past 
for the social, intellectual and moral, and religious 
elevation of the people have had their impulse, and 
to a large extent their support, both pecuniary and 
active, from Christian churches and individuals. All 
that is perfectly true and, I believe, undeniable. But 
it is also true that there remains an enormous, 
shameful, dead mass of inertness in our churches, and 
that, unless we can break up that, the omens are bad, 
bad for society, worse for the Church. If cholera is 
raging in Ancoats, Didsbury will not escape. If the 
hovels are infected, the mansions will have to pay 
their tribute to the disease. If we do not recognize 
the brotherhood of the suffering and the sinful, in 
any other fashion—then, as a great teacher told us a 
generation ago now, and nobody paid any attention to 
him, then they will rise up and show you that they 
are your brethren by killing some of you by infection 
caught from them. And so self-preservation conjoins 
with loftier motives to make this sympathetic obser- 
vation of the surrounding sorrows the plainest of 
Christian duties. 

II.—Secondly, such a realization of the dark facts is 
indispensable to all true work for alleviating them. 

There is no way of helping men but by bearing 
what they bear. No man will ever lighten a sorrow 
of which he has not himself felt the pressure. Jesus 
Christ’s Cross, to which we are ever appealing as the 
ground of our redemption and the anchor of our hope, 
is these, thank God! But it is more than these. It 
is the pattern for our lives, and it lays down the 
enduring conditions of helping the sinful and the 
sorrowful with stringent accuracy and completeness, 


THE CHURCH AND SOCIAL EVILS. 263 


The “ saviours of society” have still, in lower fashion, 
to be crucified. Jesus Christ would never have been 
the Lamb of God, that bore away the sins of the world, 
unless He Himself had “taken our infirmities and 
borne our sicknesses.” No work of healing will be 
done, except by those whose hearts have bled with 
the feeling of the miseries which they have set them- 
selves to cure. 

Oh! we all want a far fuller realization of that 
sympathetic spirit of the pitying Christ, if we are ever 
to be of any use in the world, or to help the miseries 
of any of our brethren. Such a sorrowful and parti- 
cipating contemplation of men’s sorrows springing 
from men’s sins will give tenderness to our words, will 
give patience, will soften our whole bearing. Help 
that is flung to people, as you might fling a bone to 
a dog, hurts those whom it is meant to benefit, and 
patronizing help does little good, and lecturing help 
does little more. You must take blind beggars by the 
hand if you are going to make them see; and you 
must not be afraid to lay your white, clean fingers 
upon the feculent masses of corruption in the leper’s 
glistening whiteness, if you are going to make him 
whole. Go down in order to lift, and remember that 
without sympathy there is no sufficient help, and 
without communion with Christ there is no sympathy. 

III.—Thirdly, such realization of surrounding 
sorrows should drive to communion with God. 

Nehemiah wept and mourned, and that was well. 
But between his weeping and mourning and his prac- 
tical work there had to be still another link of con- 
nection. “He wept and mourned,” and because he 
was sad he turned to God—“I fasted and prayed 


264 THE CHURCH AND SOCIAL EVILS. 


certain days.”. There he got at once comfort for his 
sorrows and sympathies, and deepening of his sym- 
pathies, and thence he drew inspiration that made 
him a hero and a martyr. So, all true service for the 
world must begin with close communion with God. 

There was a book published some year or two ago 
which made a great noise in its little day, and 
called itself “The Service of Man,” which service it 
proposed to substitute for the effete conception of — 
worship as the service of God. The service of man | 
is then best done when it is the service of God. I ~ 
suppose nowadays it is “old-fashioned” and “nar- 
row,” which is the sin of sins at present, to say 
that 1 have very little faith in the persistence and 
wide operation of any philanthropic motives except 
the highest—namely, compassion caught from Jesus 
Christ. I do not believe that you will get men year 
in and year out to devote themselves in any consider- 
able numbers to the service of man, unless you appeal 
to this highest of motives You may enlist a little 
corps—and God forbid that I should deny such a 
plain fact—of selecter spirits to do purely secular, 
alleviative work, with an entire ignoring of Christian 
motives, but you will never get the army of workers 
that is needed to grapple with the facts of our present 
condition, unless you touch the very deepest springs 
of conduct, and these are to be found in communion 
with God. Other philanthropy is like surface wells, 
that soon run dry. Get down to the love of God, and 
the love of men therefrom, and you have tapped an 
artesian well which will bubble up unfailingly. 

And I have not much faith in remedies which 
ignore religion, and are vaunted as, without it, 


THE CHURCH AND SOCIAL EVILS. 265 


sufficient for the disease. I do not want to say 
one word that might seem to depreciate what 
are good and valid and noble efforts in their several 
spheres. There is no need for antagonism—rather, 
Christian men are bound by every consideration to 
help to the utmost of their power, even in the 
incomplete attempts that are made to grapple with 
social problems. There is room enough for us all. 
But sure I am that until grapes and water-beds cure 
small-pox, and a spoonful of cold water puts out | 
Vesuvius, you will not cure the evils of the body 
politic by any lesser means than the application of ’ 
the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

We hear a great deal to-day about a “social gospel,” 
and I am glad of the conception, and of the favour 
which it receives. Only let us remember that the 
Gospel is social second, and individual first; and 
that, if you get the love of God and obedience to Jesus 
Christ into a man’s heart, it will be like putting gas 
into a balloon. It will go up, and the men will get out 
of the slums fast enough ; and he will not be a slave 
to the vices of the world much longer, and you will 
have done more for him and for the wide circle that 
he may influence than by any other means. I do not 
want to depreciate any helpers, but I say it is the 
work of the Christian Church to carry to the world the 
only thing that will make men deeply and abidingly 
happy, because it will make them good. 

IV.—And so, lastly, such sympathy should be the 
parent of a noble, self-sacrificing life. Look at the 
man in our story. He had the ball at his feet. He 
had the entrée of a court, and the ear of a king. 
Brilliant prospects were opening before him, but his 


266 THE CHURCH AND SOCIAL EVILS. 


brethren’s sufferings drew him, and, with a noble 
resolution of self-sacrifice, he shut himself out from 
them and went into the wilderness. He is one of the 
Scripture characters that have never had due honour— 
hero, a saint, a martyr, a reformer. He did, though 
in a smaller sphere, the very same thing that the 


writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews magnified with - 


his splendid eloquence, in reference to the great Law- 
~ giver, “and chose rather to suffer affliction with the 


people of God,” and to turn his back upon the dazzle- — 


ments of a court, than to “enjoy the pleasures of sin 
for a season,” whilst his brethren were suffering. 

Now, dear friends, the letter of the example may be 
put aside; the spirit of it must be observed. If 
Christians are to do the work that they can do, and 
that Christ has put them into this world that they 
may do, there must be self-sacrifice with it. There 
is no shirking that obligation, and there is no dis- 
charging our duty without it. You and I, in our 
several ways, are as much under the sway of that 
absolute law, that if a corn of wheat fall into the 
ground and die, it brings forth fruit, as ever were 
Jesus Christ or His apostles. I have nothing to say 
about the manner of the sacrifice. It is no part of 
my business to prescribe to you details of duty. It is 
my business to insist on the principles which must 
regulate these; and of these principles in application 
to Christian service there is none more stringent than, 
“T will not offer unto my God burnt-offering of that 
which doth cost me nothing.” 

I am sure that, under God, the great remedy for 
social evils lies mainly here, that the bulk of pro- 
fessing Christians shall recognize and discharge their 


THE CHURCH AND SOCIAL EVILS. 267 


responsibilities. It is not ministers, city missionaries, 
Bible-women, or any other paid people that can do 
the work. It is to be by Christian men and by 
Christian women, and if I might use a very vulgar 
distinction, which has a meaning in the present con- 
nection, very specially by Christian ladies, taking 
their part in the work amongst the degraded and the 
outcasts, that our sorest difficulties and problems will 
be solved. If a church does not face these, well! all 
I can say is, it will go spark out; and the sooner the 
better. “If thou forbear to deliver them that are 
appointed to death, and say, Behold! I knew it not, 
shall not He that weigheth the hearts consider it, and 
shall He not render to every man according to his 
work?” And, on the other hand, there are no bless- 
ings more rich, select, sweet, and abiding than are to 
be found in sharing the sorrow of the Man of Sorrows, 
and carrying the message of His pity and His redemp- 
tion to an outcast world. “If thou draw out thy 
soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul, the 
Lord shall satisfy thy soul; and thou shalt be as a 
watered garden, and as a spring of water whose waters 
fail not.” 


XXVIL 


One Saying from Three Men. 


“THE wicked hath said in his heart, I shall not be moved.’— 


PSALM «x. 6. 

“ Because He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.”—PsALM 
xvi. 8. 

“ And in my prosperity I said, I shall never be moved.”"—PsALM 
xxx. 6. 


OW differently the same things sound 
when said by different men! Here 
are three people giving utterance to 
almost the same sentiment of confi- 
dence. A wicked man says it, and it 

is insane presumption and defiance. A good man 

says it, having been lulled into false security by easy 

times, and it is a mistake that needs chastisement. A 

humble believing soul says it, and it is the expression 

of a certain and blessed truth. “The wicked saith in 
his heart, I shall not be moved.” A good man, led 
astray by his prosperity, said, “I shall not be moved,” 
and the last of the three puts a little clause in which 
makes all the difference, “because He is at my right 
hand, I shall never be moved.” So, then, we have 
the mad arrogance of godless confidence, the mistake 
of a good man that needs correction, and the war- 

ranted confidence of a believing soul. 


ONE SAYING FROM THREE MEN. 269 


I.—The mad arrogance of godless confidence. 

The “wicked” man, in the psalm from which our 
first text comes, said a good many wrong things “in 
his heart.” The tacit assumptions on which a life is 
based, though they may never come to consciousness 
and still less to utterance, are the really important 
things. I daresay this “wicked man” was a good 
Jew with his lips, and said his prayers all properly, 
but in his heart he had two working beliefs. One is 
thus expressed : “ As for all his enemies, he puffeth at 
them. He hath said in his heart, I shall not be 
moved.” The other is put into words thus: “ He hath 
said in his heart, God hath forgotten, He hideth His 
face, He will never see it.” 

That is to say, the only explanation of a godless 
life, unless the man is an idiot, is that there lie 
beneath it, as formative principles and unspoken 
assumptions, guiding and shaping it, one or both of 
these two thoughts: either “There is no God,” or 
“ He does not care what I do, and I am safe to go on 
for evermore in the present fashion.” It might seem 
as if a man, with the facts of human life before him, 
could not, even in the insanest arrogance, say, “I shall 
not be moved. for I shall never be in adversity.” But 
we have an awful power—and the facts that we can 
exercise, and choose to exercise, are among the strange 
riddles of our enigmatical existence and characters— 
of ignoring unwelcome facts, and going cheerily on as 
though we had annihilated them, because we do not 
reflect upon them. So this man, in the midst of a 
world in which there is no stay, and whilst he saw all 
around him the most startling and tragical instances 
of sudden change and complete collapse, stands quietly 


270 ONE SAYING FROM THREE MEN. 


and says, “ Ah! J shall never be moved”; “God doth 
not require it.” 

That absurdity is the basis of every life that is not 
a life of consecration and devotion—so far as it has a 
basis of conviction at all. The “ wicked” man’s true 
faith is this, absurd as it may sound when you drag 
it out into clear distinct utterance, whatever may 
be his professions. I wonder if there are any of us 
whose life can only be acquitted of being utterly 
unreasonable and ridiculous, by the assumption “I 
shall never be moved.” 

Have you a lease of your goods? Do you think you 
are tenants at will or owners? Which? Is there any 
reason why any of us should escape, as some of us 
live as if we believed we should escape, the certain fate 
of all others? If there is not, what about the sanity 
of a man whose whole life is built upon a blunder ? 
He is convicted of the grossest folly, unless he is 
assured that either there is no God, or that He does 
not care one rush about what we do, and that conse- 
quently we are certain of a continuance in our present 
state. - 

Do you say in your heart, “I shall never be 
moved”? Then you must be strong enough to resist 
every tempest that beats against you. Is that so? “I 
shall never be moved.” Then nothing that contributes 
to your well-being will ever slip from your grasp, but 
you will always be able to hold it tight. Is that so? 
“T shall never be moved.” Then there is no grave 
waiting for you. Is that so? Unless these three as- 
sumptions are warranted, every godless man is making 
a hideous blunder, and his character is in the sentence 
pronounced by the loving lips of incarnate Truth on 


ONE SAYING FROM THREE MEN. 271 


the rich man who thought that he had “much goods 
laid up for many years,” and had only to be merry— 
“Thou fool! Thou fool!” 

If an engineer builds a bridge across a river without 
due calculation of the force of the winds that blow 
down the gorge, the bridge will be at the bottom of 
the stream some stormy night, and the train piled on 
the fragments of it in hideous ruin. And with equal 
certainty the end of the first utterer of this speech 
can be calculated, and is foretold in the psalm, “The 
Lord is King for ever andever. . . . The godless 
are perished out of the land.” 

Il—We have in our second text the mistake of a 
good man who has been lulled into false confidence. 

The Psalmist admits his error by the acknowledg- 
ment that he spoke “in my prosperity”; or, as the 
word might be rendered, “in my security.” This 
suggests to us the mistake into which even good men, 
lulled by the quiet continuance of peaceful days, 
are certain to fall, unless continual watchfulness be 
exercised by them. 

It isa very significant fact that the word which is 
translated in our Authorized Version “prosperity” is 
often rendered “ security,” meaning thereby, not safety 
but a belief that I am safe. A man who is prosperous, 
or at ease, is sure to drop into the notion that “to- 
morrow will be as this day, and much more abun- 
dant,” unless he keeps up unslumbering watchfulness 
against the insidious illusion of permanence. If he 
yields to the temptation, in his foolish security forget- 
ting how fragile are its foundations, and what a host 
of enemies surround him, threatening it, then there is 
nothing for it but that the merciful discipline, which 


272 ONE SAYING FROM THREE MEN. 


this Psalmist goes on to tell us he had to pass through 
by reason of his fall, shall be brought to bear upon 
him. The writer gives us a page of his own auto- 
biography. “In my security I said, I shall never be 
moved.” “Lord! by Thy favour Thou hast made my 
mountain to stand strong. Thou didst hide Thy face.” 
What about the security then? What about “I shall 
never be moved” then? “I was troubled. I cried to 
Thee, O Lord !”—and then it was all right, his prayer 
was heard, and he was in “security ”—that is, safety— 
far more really when he was “troubled” and sore 
beset than when he had been, as he fancied, sure of 
not being moved. 

Long peace rusts the cannon, and is apt to make it 
unfit for war. Our lack of imagination and our 
present sense of comfort and well-being tend to make 
us fancy that we shall go on for ever in the quiet jog- 
trot of settled life without any very great calamities 
or changes. But there was once a village at the 
bottom of the crater of Vesuvius, and great trees, that 
had grown undisturbed there for a hundred years, and 
green pastures, and happy homes, and flocks. And 
then, one day a rumble, and a rush, and what became 
of the village? It went up in smoke clouds, The 
quiescence of a volcano is no sign of its extinction. 
And as surely as we live, so sure is it that there will 
came a “ to-morrow ” to us all which shall not “be as 
this day.” No man has any right to calculate upon 
anything beyond the present moment, and there is no 
basis whatever, either for the philosophical assertion 
that the order of nature is fixed, and that therefore 
there are no miracles, or for the practical translation 
of the assertion into our daily lives, that we may 


ONE SAYING FROM THREE MEN. 273 


reasonably expect to go on as we are without changes 
or calamities. Thee is no reason, capable of being 
put into logical shape, for believing that, because the 
sun has risen ever since the beginning of things, it 
will rise to-morrow, for there will come a to-morrow 
when it will not rise. In like manner, the longest 
possession of our mercies is no reason for forgetting 
the precarious tenure on which we hold them all. . 

So, Christian men and women, let us try to keep 
vivid that consciousness which is so apt to get dull, 
that nothing continueth in one stay, and that we 
shall be moved, as far as the outward life and its 
circumstances are concerned, If we forget it, we shall 
need, and we shall get, the loving Fatherly discipline, 
which my second text tells us followed the false 
security of this good man. The sea. is kept from 
putrefying by storms. Wine poured from vessel to 
vessel is purified thereby. It is an old truth and a 
wholesome one, to be always remembered, “because 
they have no changes, therefore they fear not Goa.” 

III.—Lastly, we have the same thing said by 
another man in another key. “Because He is at my 
right hand, I shall not be moved.” The prelude to 
the assertion makes all the difference. Here is the 
warranted confidence of a simple faith. 

The man who clasps God’s hand, and has Him 
standing by his side as his Ally, his Companion, his 
Guide, his Defence—that man does not need to fear 
change. For, all the thoughts which convict the arro- 
gant or mistaken confidences of the other two speakers 
as being folly or a lapse from faith, prove the confi- 
dence of the trustful soul to be the very perfection of 


reason and common sense, 
18 


274 ONE SAYING FROM THREE MEN. 


We may be confident of our power to resist any- 
thing that can come against us, if He be at our side. 
The man that stands with his back against an oak 
tree is held firm, not because of his own strength, 
but because of that of his support. There is a 
beautiful story of some heathen convert who said to a 
missionary’s wife, who had felt faint and asked that 
she might lean for a space on her stronger arm, “ It 
you love me, lean hard.” That is what God says to 
us. “If you love Me, lean hard.” And if we do, 
“because He is at our right hand, we shall not be 
moved.” It is not insanity; it is not arrogance; it is 
simple faith, to look our enemies in the eyes, and to 
feel sure that they cannot touch us. “Trust in 
Jehovah; so shall ye be established.” Rest in the 
Lord, and ye shall rest indeed. ; 

In like manner the man who has God at his right 
hand may be sure of the unalterable continuance of 
all his proper good. Outward things may come or go, 
is it pleases Him, but that which makes the life of 
our life will never depart from us as long as He stands 
beside us. And whilst He is there, if only our hearts 
are knit to Him, we can say, “ My heart and my flesh 
faileth, but God is the strength of my heart, and my 
portion for ever. I shall not be moved. Though all 
that can go goes, He abides; and in Him I have all 
riches.” “Trust not in the uncertainty of outward 
good, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all 
things to enjoy.” 

The wicked man was defiantly arrogant, and the 
forgetful good man was criminally self-confident, when 
they each said, “I shall not be moved.” We are only 
taking up the privileges that belong to us if, exercising 


ONE SAYING FROM THREE MEN. 275 


faith in Him, we venture to say, “Take what Thou 
wilt; leave me Thyself; I have enough.” And the 
man who says, “ Because God is at my right hand, I 
shall not be moved,” has the right to anticipate an 
unbroken continuance of personal being, and an un- 
changed continuance of the very life of his life 
That which breaks off all other lives abruptly is no 
breach in the continuity, either of the conscious- 
ness or of the avocations, of a devout man. For 
beyond the flood, he does what he does on this side, 
only more perfectly and more continually. “He that 
doeth the will of God abideth for ever.” And it 
makes comparatively little difference to him whether 
his place be on this or on the other side of Jordan. 
We “shall not be moved,” even when we change our 
station from earth to heaven. And the.sublime fulfil- 
ment of the warranted confidence of the trustful soul 
is when the to-morrow of the skies is as the to-day of 
earth, only “much more abundant.” 


TT 


18* 


XXVIII. 


Feasting on the Sacrifice, 


“The meek shall eat and be satisfied."—Ps, xxii, 26. 


\/. Sp HE flesh of the sacrifice of his peace- 
AY Gs offering for thanksgiving shall be 
| offered in the day of his oblation.” 
Such was the law for Israel, And 
the custom of sacrificial feasts, 
which it embodies, was common to many lands. To such 
a custom my text alludes; for the Psalmist has just 
’ been speaking of “ paying his vows” (that is, sacrifices 
which he had vowed in the time of his trouble), 
and to partake of these he invites the meek. In 
some way or other the singer of this Psalm antici- 
pates that his experiences shall be the nourishment 
and gladness of a wide circle; and if we observe 
that in the context that circle is supposed to . 
include the whole world, and that one of the results 
of partaking of this sacrificial feast is, “your heart 
shall live for ever,’ we may well say with the 
Ethiopian eunuch, “of whom speaketh the Psalmist 
thus ?” 

The early part of the Psalm answers the question. 
Jesus Christ laid His hand on this wonderful Psalm 


FEASTING ON THE SACRIFICE. 277 


of desolation, despair, and deliverance, when on the ~ 
Cross He took its first words as expressing His 
emotion then: “My God! My God! Why hast Thou 
forsaken Me?” Whatever may be our views as to 
its authorship, and as to the connection between the 
Psalmist’s utterances and his own personal expe- 
riences, none to whom that voice that rang through 
the darkness on Calvary is the voice of the Son of 
God, can hesitate as to who it is whose very griefs 
and sorrows are thus the spiritual food that gives life 
to the whole world. 

From this, the true point of view, then, from which 
to look at the whole of this wonderful Psalm, I desire 
to deal with the words of my text now. 

I—wWe have first, then, the world’s sacrificial 
feast. 

The Jewish ritual, and that of many other nations, 
as I have remarked, provided for a festal meal follow- 
ing on, and consisting of the material of, the sacrifice. 
A generation which studies comparative mythology, 
and spares no pains to get at the meaning underlying ~ 
the barbarous worship of the rudest nations, ought to 
be interested in the question of the ideas that underlay 
and were expressed by that elaborate Jewish ritual. 
Tn the present case the signification is plain enough. 
That which, in one aspect, is a peace-offering recon- 
ciling to God, in another aspect is the nourishment 
and the joy of the hearts that accept it. And so the 
work of Jesus Christ has two distinct phases of appli- 
cation, according as we think of it as being offered to 
God or appropriated by men. In the one aspect it is 
our peace ; in the other it is our food and our life. If 
we glance for a moment at the marvellous picture of 


278 FEASTING ON THE SACRIFICE. 


suffering and desolation in the previous portion of 
this Psalm, which sounds the very depths of both, we 
shall understand more touchingly what it is on which 
Christian hearts are to feed. The desolation that 
spoke in “ Why hast Thou forsaken me?” the con- 
sciousness of rejection and reproach, of mockery and 
contempt, which wailed, “ All that see me laugh me 
to scorn ; they shoot out the lip; they shake the head, 
saying, He trusted on the Lord that He would deliver 
him; let Him deliver him, seeing he delighteth in 
Him”; the physical sufferings which are the very 
picture of crucifixion, so as that the whole reads more 
hke history than prophecy, in “ All my bones are out of 
joint; my strength is dried up like a potsherd; and 
my tongue cleaveth to my jaws”; the actual passing 
into the darkness of the grave, which is expressed in 
“ Thou hast brought me into the dust of death”; and 
even the minute correspondence, so inexplicable upon 
any hypothesis except that it is direct prophecy, which 
is found in “They part my garments among them, and 
cast lots upon my vesture ”—these be the viands, not 
without bitter herbs, that are laid on the table which 
Christ spreads for us. They are parts of the sacrifice 
that reconciles to God. Offered to Him they make 
our peace. They are parts and elements of the food 
of our spirits. Appropriated and partaken of by us 
they make our strength and our life. : 
Brethren, there is little food, there is little impulse, 
little strength for obedience, little gladness or peace of 
heart to be got from a Christ who is not a Sacrifice, 
If we would know how much He ¢an be to us, as the 
nourishment of our best life, and as the source of our 
purest and permanent gladness, we must, first of all, 


FEASTING ON THE SACRIFICE. 279 


look upon Him as the Offering for the world’s sin, 
and then as the very life and bread of our souls. The 
Christ that feeds the world is the Christ that died for 
the world. 

Hence our Lord Himself, most eminently in one 
great and profound discourse, has set forth, not only 
that He is the Bread of God which came down from 
heaven, but that His flesh and His blood are so; 
and the separation between the two in the discourse, 
as in the memorial rite, indicates that the violent 
separation of death has taken place, and that thereby 
He becomes the life of humanity. 

So my text, and the whole series of Old Testament 
representations in which the blessings of the Kingdom 
are set forth as a feast, and the parables of the New 
Testament in which a similar representation is con- 
tained, do all converge upon, and receive their deepest 
meaning from, that one central thought, that the peace- 
offering for the world is the food of the world. We 
see, hence, the connection between these great spiri- 
tual ideas and the chief act of Christian worship. 
The Lord’s Supper simply says by act what my text 
says in words, I know no difference between the rite 
and the parable, except that the one is addressed to 
the eye and the other to the ear. The rite is an acted 
parable ; the parable is a spoken rite. And when 
Jesus Christ, in the great discourse to which I have 
referred, dilates at length upon the eating of His flesh 
and the drinking of His blood as being the condition 
of spiritual life, He is not referring to the Lofd’s 
Supper, but the discourse and the rite both refer to 
the same spiritual truth. One is a symbol; the other 
is a saying; and symbol and. saying mean just the 


280 _ FEASTING ON THE SACRIFICE. - 


same thing. The saying does not refer to the symbol, 
but to that to which the symbol refers. It seems to 
me that one of the greatest dangers which now 
threaten Evangelical Christianity is the strange and 
almost inexplicable recrudescence of Sacramen- 
tarianism in this generation to which those Christian 
communities are contributing, however reluctantly 
and unconsciously, who say there is something more 
than commemorative symbols in the bread and wine 
of the Lord’s table. If once you admit that, it seems, 
in my humble judgment, that you open the door to 
the whole flood of evils which the history of the 
Church declares have come with the Sacramen- 
tarian hypothesis. And we must take our stand, 
as I believe, upon the plain, intelligible thoughts— 
Baptism is a declaratory symbol, and nothing more; 
the Lord’s Supper is a commemorative symbol, and 
nothing more ; except that both are acts of obedience 
to the enjoining Lord. When we stand there we can 
face all priestly superstitions, and say, “ Jesus I know; 
and Paul I know; but who are ye?” “The meek 
shall eat,and be satisfied.” And the food of the world 
is the suffering Messiah. 
But what have we to say about the act expressed 
in the text? “The meek shall eat.” I do not desire 
to dwell upon the thought of the process by which 
this food of the world becomes ours at any length. 
But there are two points which perhaps may be 
regarded as various aspects of one, on which I would 
like to say just a sentence or two. Of course, the 
translation of the “eating” of my text into spiritual 
reality is simply that we partake of Christ as 
the food of our spirits by the act of faith; and 


FEASTING ON THE SACRIFICE. ~ 281 


that being so, personal appropriation, and making 
the world’s food mine, by my own individual act, 
is the condition on which alone I get any good 
from it. It is possible to die of starvation at the door 
ofa granary. It is possible to have a table spread 
with all that is needful, and yet to set one’s teeth, and 
lock one’s lips, and receive no strength and no glad- 
ness from the rich provision. “Eat” means, at any 
rate, incorporate with myself, take into my very own 
lips, masticate with my very own teeth, swallow down 
by my very own act, and so make part of my physical 
frame. And that is what we have todo with Jesus 
Christ, or He is nothing tous. “Eat”; claim your 
part in the universal blessing; see that it becomes 
yours by your own taking of it into the very depths 
of your heart. And then, and then only: will it 
become your food. 

And how are we to do that if, ‘lary in and 
day out, and week in and week out, and year 
in and year out, with some of us, there be scarce 
a thought turned to Him; scarce a desire wing- 
ing its way to him; scarce one moment of quiet 
contemplation of these great truths, We have to 
ruminate, we have to meditate; we have to make 
conscious and frequent efforts to bring before the 
mind, in the first place, and then before the heart 
and all the sensitive, emotional, and voluntary 

nature, the great truths on which our salvation 
rests. In so far as we do that we get good out of 
them; in so far a3 we fail to do it, we may call our- 
selves Christians and attend to religious observances, 
and be members of churches, and diligent in good 
works, and all the rest of it, but nothing passes from 


282 FEASTING ON THE SACRIFICE. 


Him to us, and we starve even whilst we call ourselves 
guests at His table. 

Oh, the average Christian life of this day is a 
strange thing! very, very little of it has the depth 
that comes from quiet communion with Jesus Christ ; 
and very little of it has the joyful consciousness- of 
strength that comes from habitual reception into the 
heart of the grace that He gives. What is the good 
of all your profession unless it brings that to you? If 
a coroner’s jury were to sit upon many of us—and we 
are dead enough to deserve it—the verdict would be, 
“Died of starvation.” “The meek shall eat.” But 
what about the professing Christians that feed their 
souls upon anything and everything rather than upon 
the Christ whom they say they trust and serve ? 

II.—And now let me say a word, in the second place, 
about the rich fruition of this feast ? 

“The meek shall be satisfied.” Satisfied! Who 
in this world is? And if we are not, why are we 
not? Jesus Christ, in the facts of His death and 


resurrection—both of which are foretold in the Psalm ~ 


—brings to us all that our circumstances, relation- 
ships, and inward condition can require. 

Think of what that death, as the sacrifice for the 
world’s sin, does. It sets all right in regard of our 
relation to God. It reveals to usa God of infinite love. 
It provides a motive, an impulse, and a pattern for all 
life. It abolishes death, and it gives ample scope for 
the loftiest and most exuberant hopes that a man can 
cherish. And surely these are enough to satisfy the 
seeking spirit. 

But, further, think not of what Christ’s work 
does for us, but of what we need to have done 


FEASTING ON THE SACRIFICE. 283 


for us. What do you and I want for satisfaction? 
It would take a long time to go over the catalogue; 
let me briefly run through some of the salient points 
of it. We need, for the intellect, which is the regal 
_ part of man, though it be not the highest, truth 
which is certain, comprehensive, and inexhaustible; 
the first, to provide anchorage; the second, to meet 
‘and regulate and unify all thought and life; and the 
last, to allow room for endless research and ceaseless 
progress. And in these facts that the eternal Son of 
the eternal Father took upon Himself human nature, 
lived, died, rose, and reigns at God’s right hand, I 
believe there lie the seeds of all truth, except the 
purely -physical and material, which men need. 
Everything is there; every truth about God, about 
man, about duty, about a future, about society ; every- 
thing that the world needs is laid up in germ in that 
great Gospel of our salvation. If a man will take. it 
for the foundation of his beliefs and the guide of his 
thinkings, he will find that his understanding is 
satisfied, because it grasps the personal Truth who 
liveth, and is with us for ever. 

Our hearts crave, however imperfect their love may 
be, a perfect love; and a perfect love means one un- 
tinged by any dash of selfishness, incapable of any 
variation or eclipse, all-knowing, all-pitying, all-power- 
ful. We have made experience of precious loves that 
die. We know of loves that. change, that grow cold, 
that misconstrue, that may have tears to pity but no 
hands to help. We know of “loves” that are only a 
fine name for animal passions, and are twice cursed, 
_eursing them that give and them that take. The 
happiest will admit, and the lonely will achingly feel, 


284 FEASTING ON THE SACRIFICE. 


how we all need for our satisfaction a love that cannot 
fail, that can help; that beareth all things, and that 
can do all things. We have it in Jesus Christ, and 
the Cross is the pledge thereof. 

Conscience wants pacifying, cleansing, enlightening, 
directing, and it gets all these in the good news of One 
that has died for us, and that lives to be our Lord. The 
will needs authority which is not force, And where 
is there an authority so constraining in its sweetness 
and so sweet in its constraint as in those silken bonds 
which are stronger than iron fetters? Hope, imagi- 
nation, and all other of our powers or weaknesses, our 
gifts or needs, are satisfied when they feed on Christ. 
If we feed upon anything else it turns to ashes that 
break our teeth and make our palates gritty, and have 
no nourishment in them. We shall be “for ever 
roaming with a hungry heart” unless we take our 
places at the feast on the one sacrifice for the world’s 
peace. 

11I.—I can say but a word as to the Guests. 

lt is “the meek” who eat. The word trans- 
lated “meek” has a wider and deeper meaning 
than that. “Meek” refers, in our common language, 
mainly to men’s demeanour to one another; but the 
expression here includes more than that. It means 
both “afflicted” and “lowly”—the right use of 
affliction being to bow men. And they that bow 
themselves are those who are fit to come to 
Christ’s feast. There is a very remarkable contrast 
between the words of my text and those that 
follow a verse or two afterwards. “The meek shall 
eat and be satisfied,” says the text. And then 
elose upon it comes, “All those that be fat upon 


FEASTING ON THE SACRIFICE. 285 


earth shall eat.” That is to say, the lofty and proud 
have to come down to the level of the lowly 
and take their places at the table along with the 
poor and the starving, which, being turned into plain 
English, is just this—the main things that hinder a 
man from partaking of the fulness of Christ’s satisfying 
grace is self-sufficiency, and the absence of a sense of 
need. They that “hunger and thirst after righteous- 
ness shall be filled”; and they that come, knowing 
themselves to be poor and needy, and humbly consent- 
ing to accept a gratuitous feast of charity—they, and 
only they, do get the rich provisions. 

You are shut out because you shut yourselves out. 
They that do not know themselves to be hungry have 
no ears for the dinner-bell. They that feel the pangs 
of starvation and know that their own cupboards are 
empty are those who will turn to the table that 
is spread in the wilderness, and there find a feast of 
fat things. 

And so, dear friends, when He calls, do not let us 
make excuses, but rather listen to that voice that says 
to us, “ Why do you spend your money for that which 
is not bread, and your labour for that which satisfieth 
not? . . . Incline your ear unto Me; hear, and 
your soul shall live.” 


‘oy 
‘ 

7 iP 

~~ caitlin 


XXIX, 


The Dismissal of Fudas. ~ 


‘THEN gaid Jesus unto Judas, That thou doest, do quickly.”— 
JOHN xiii, 27 


HEN our Lord gave the morsel, dipped 
in the dish, to Judas, only John knew 
the significance of the act. But, if we 
supplement the narrative here with 
that given by Matthew, we shall find 

that, accompanying the gift of the sop, was a brief 

dialogue in which the betrayer, with unabashed front, 
hypocritically said, “Lord! is it 1?” and heard the 
solemn, sad answer, “Thou sayest!” Two things, 
then, appealed to him at the moment: one, the con- 
viction that he was discovered; the other, the won- 
derful assurance that he was still loved. For the gift 
of the morsel was a token of friendliness. He shut 
his heart against them both ; and as he shut his heart 
against Christ he opened it to the devil. “So after 

the sop Satan entered into him.” At that moment a 

soul committed suicide; and none of those that sat 

by, with the exception of Christ and the “disciple 
whom He loved,” so much as dreamed of the tragedy 
going on before their eyes. 

I know not that there are anywhere words more 


THE DISMISSAL OF JUDAS. 287 


weighty and wonderful than those of our text. And 

I wish to try now if I can at all make you feel as 

I feel their solemn signification and force. “That 
thou doest, do quickly.” 

’ [—I hear in them, first, the voice of despairing 
love abandoning the conflict. 

If I have rightly construed the meaning of the 
incident, this is its plain significance. And you will 
observe that the Revised Version, more accurately 
and closely rendering the words of our text, begins 
with a “therefore.” “Therefore said Jesus unto him.” 
Because the die was cast; because the will of Judas 
had conclusively welcomed Satan, and conclusively 
rejected Christ ; therefore, knowing that remonstrance 
was vain, knowing that the deed was, in effect, done, 
Jesus Christ, that Incarnate Charity which “ believeth 
all things, and hopeth all things,” abandoned the man 
to himself and said, “There, then, if thou wilt thou 
must. I have done all I can; my last arrow is shot, 
and it has missed the target. That thou doest, do 
quickly.” 

There is a world of solemn meaning in that one 
little word “doest.” It teaches us the old lesson, 
which sense is so apt to forget, that the true actor in 
man’s deeds is the hidden man of the heart, and that, 
when it has acted, it matters comparatively little 
whether the mere tools and instruments of the hands 
or of the other organs have carried out the behest. A 
thing is done before it is done, when a man has 
“resolved, with a fixed will, to doit. The betrayal was 
as good as in process, though no step beyond the 
introductory ones, which could easily have been can- 
celled, had yet been accomplished. Because there was 


288 THE DISMISSAL OF JUDAS. 


a fixed purpose which could not be altered by any- 
thing now, therefore Jesus Christ regards the act as 
completed. What we think in our hearts, that we 
are; and our fixed determinations, our inclinations of 
will, are far more truly our doings than the mere con- 
- sequences of these, embodied in actuality. It is buta 
poor estimate of a man that judges by the test of 
what he has done. What he has wanted to do is the 
true man; what he has attempted todo. “It was well 
that it was in thine heart!” said God to the king who 
thought of building the Temple which he was never 
allowed to rear. “It is ill that it is in thine heart,” 
says He by whom actions are weighed, to the sinner 
in purpose, though his clean hands lie idly in his lap. 
These hidden movements of desire and will that 
never come to the surface are our true selves. 
Look after them, and the deeds will take care of 
themselves. Serpents’ eggs have serpents in them. 
And he that has determined upon a sin has done 
the sin, whether his hands have been put to it 
or no. 

But, then, turn fora moment to the other thought 
that is suggested here—that solemn picture of a soul 
left to do as it will, because Divine love has no other 
restraints which it can impose, and is bankrupt of 
motives that it can adduce to prevent it from its mad- 
ness. Now I do not believe, for my part, that any 
man in this world is so utterly “sold unto sin” as 
that the seeking love of God gives him up as irre- 
claimable. I do not believe that there are any people 


concerning whom it is true that it is impossible for 


the grace of God to find some chink and cranny in 
their souls, through which it can enter and change 


THE DISMISSAL OF JUDAS. 289 


them. There are no hopeless cases as long as men 
are here, 

But, then, though there may not be so, in regard of 
the whole sweep of the man’s nature, yet every one of 
us over and over again has known what it is to come 
exactly into that position, in regard to some single evil 
or other, concerning which we have so set our teeth 
and planted our feet at such an angle of resistance as 
that God gives up dealing with us and leaves us, as 
He did with Balaam, when he opposed his covetous 
inclinations to all the remonstrances of Heaven. God 
said at last to him “Go!” because it was the best way 
to teach him what a fool he had been in wishing to 
go. Thus, when we determine to set ourselves against 
the pleadings and the beseechings of Divine love, the 
truest kindness is to fling the reins upon our necks. 
and let us gallop ourselves into sweat and weariness, 
and then we shall be more amenable to the touch of 
the bit thereafter. 

Are there any people here now whom God is 
teaching obedience to His light touch, by letting 
them run their course after some one specific sin ? 
Perhaps there are. At all events, let us remember 
that that sad fate of being allowed to do as we like 
is one to which we all tend, in the measure in 
which we indulge our inclinations, and shut our 
hearts against God’s pleadings. There is such a 
thing as a conscience seared as with a hot iron. They 
used to say that there were witches’ marks in the 
body; places where, if you shoved a pin in, there was 
no feeling. Men cover themselves all over with 
marks of that sort, which are not sensitive even to 
the prick of Divine remonstrance, rebuke, or retri- 

19 


290 THE DISMISSAL OF JUDAS. 


bution. “They wipe their mouths and say, I have 
done no harm.” You can tie up the clapper of the 
bell that swings on the black rock, on which, if you 
drift, you go to pieces. You can silence the voice by 
the simple process of neglecting it. Judas set his 
teeth against two things, the solemn conviction that 


Jesus Christ knew his sin, and the saving assurance — 


that Jesus Christ loved him still. And whosoever 
resists either of these two is getting perilously near to 
the point where, not in petulance, but in pity, God 
will say: “Very well, I have called and ye have 
refused. Now go, and do what you want to do, and 
see how you like it when it is done.” “What thou 
doest, do quickly.” Do you remember the other 
word: “If ’twere done when ’tis done, then ’twere 
well it were done quickly.” But since consequences 
last when deeds are past, perhaps you had better halt 
before you determine to do it. 

II.—Now, secondly, I hear in these words the voice 
of strangely blended majesty and humiliation, 

“What thou doest, do!” Judas thought he had 
got possession of Christ’s person, and was His master 
in a very real sense. When lo! all at once the victim 
assumes the position of the Lord, and commands; 
showing the traitor that, instead of thwarting and 
counter-working, he was but carrying out the designs 
of his fancied victim; and that he was an instrument 
in Christ’s hands for the execution of His will. And 
these two thoughts, how, in effect, all antagonism, all 
malicious hatred, all violent opposition of every sort 
but work in with Christ’s purpose, and fulfil His 
intention; and how. at the moments of deepest 
apparent degradation, He towers, in manifest majesty 


THE DISMISSAL OF JUDAS, 291 


and masterhood, seem to me to be plainly taught in 
the word before us. 

He uses His foe for the furtherance of His purpose. 
That has been the history of the world ever since. 
“The floods, O Lord, have lifted up their voice.” And 
what have they done? Smashing against the break- 
water, they but consolidate its mighty blocks, and 
prove that the Lord on high is mightier than the 
noise of many waters. It has been so in the past; it 
is so to-day; it will be so till the end. Every Judas 
is unconsciously the servant of Him whom he seeks 
to betray; and finds out to his bewilderment that 
what he meant for a death-blow works the very purpose 
and will of the Lord against whom he has turned. 

Again, the combination here, in such remarkable - 
juxtaposition, of the two things—willing submission 
to the utmost extremity of shame which the treason- 
ous heart can froth out in its malice; and, at the same 
time, the rising up in conscious majesty and lordship 
—is suggested to us by the words before us. That 
union of utter lowliness and transcendent loftiness 
runs through the whole life and history of our 
Lord. Did you ever think how strong an argument 
that strange combination, wrought out so inartificially 
throughout the whole of the gospels, is for their 
historical veracity ? Suppose the problem had been 
given to poets to create, and to set in a series 
of appropriate scenes, a character with these two 
opposites stamped equally upon it, neither of them en- 
croaching upon the domain of the other—viz., perfect 
humility and humiliation in circumstance, and majestic 
sovereignty and elevation above all circumstances— 
do you think that any of them could have solved the 

: 19* 


292 THE DISMISSAL OF JUDAS. 


problem, though Aischylus and Shakespeare had been 
- amongst them, as these four men who wrote these 
four little tracts which we call gospels have done? 
How comes it that this most difficult of literary feats 
has been so triumphantly accomplished by these men? 
I think there is only one answer: Because they were 
reporters, and imagined nothing, but observed every- 
thing, and repeated what had happened. He recon- - 
ciled these opposites who was the Man of Sorrows and 
acquainted with grief, and yet the eternal Son of the — 
Father ; and the gospels have solved the problem only 
because they are simple records of its solution by 
Him. 

Wherever in His history there is some trait of lowli- 
ness there is by the side of it a flash of majesty. 
Wherever in His history there is some gleaming out 
from the veil of flesh of the hidden glory of divinity 
there is immediately some drawing of the veil across 
the glory. And the two things do not contradict nor 
confuse, but we stand before that double picture of a 
Christ betrayed and of a Christ commanding His 
betrayer, and using his treason, and we say, “The 
Word was made flesh, and dwelt amongst us.” 

III.—Again, I hear the voice of instinctive human 
weakness. ; 

“That thou doest, do quickly.” It may be doubt- 
ful, and some of you perhaps may not be disposed to 
follow me in my remark, but to my ear that sounds 
very like the utterance of that instinctive dislike of 
suspense, and of the long hanging over us of the sword 
by a hair, which we all know so well. Better to suffer 
than to wait for suffering. The loudest thunder-crash 
is not so awe-inspiring as the dread silence of Nature 


THE DISMISSAL OF JUDAS. 293 


when the sky is black, before the peal rolls through 
the clouds. Many a martyr has prayed for a swift 
ending of his troubles. Many a sorrowing heart, that 
has been sitting cowering under the anticipation of 
coming evils, has wished that the: string could be 
pulled, as it were, and that they could all come down 
in one cold flood and be done with, rather than trickle 
drop by drop. They tell us that the bravest soldiers 
dislike the five minutes when they stand in rank 
before the first shot is fired. And with all reverence I 
venture to think that He who knew all our weaknesses, 
in so far as weakness was not sin, is here letting us see 
how He, too, desired that the evil which was coming 
might come quickly, and that the painful tension of 
expectation might be as brief as possible. That may 
be doubtful ; I do not dwell upon it, but, I suggest it 
for your consideration. 

TV.—And then I pass on to the last of the tones 
that I hear in these utterances—the voice of the 
willing Sacrifice for the sins of the world. 

“That thou doest, do quickly.” There is nothing 
more obvious throughout the whole of the latter 
portion of the Gospel narrative than the way in which, 
increasingly towards its close, He seemed to hasten to 
the Cross. You remember His own sayings: “I have 
a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I strait- 
ened till it be accomplished. I am come to cast fire 
on the earth. Would it were already kindled.” You 
remember with what a strange air—I was going to 
use an inappropriate word, and say, of alacrity ; but, 
at all events, of fixed resolve—He journeyed from 
Galilee, in that last solemn march to Jerusalem, and 
how the disciples followed, astonished at the unwonted 


294 THE DISMISSAL OF JUDAS. 


air of decision and absorption that was printed upon 
His countenance. If we look at His doings in that 
last week in Jerusalem, how He courted publicity, 
how He avoided no encounter with His official 
enemies, how He sharpened His tones, not exactly so 
as to provoke, but certainly so as by no means to con- 
ciliate, we shall see, I think, in all, His consciousness 
that the hour had come, and His absolute readiness 
and willingness to be offered for the world’s sin. He 
stretches out His hands, as it were, to draw the Cross 
nearer to Himself, not with any share in the weakness 
of a fanatical aspiration after martyrdom, but under a 
far deeper and more wonderful impulse. 

Why was Christ so willing, so eager, if I may use 
the word, that His death should be accomplished? 
Two reasons, which at bottom are one, answer the 
question. He thus hastened to His Cross because He 
would obey the Father’s will, and because He loved the 
whole world—you and me and all our fellows. We 
were each in His heart. It was because He wanted to 
save thee that He said to Judas, “ Do it quickly, that 
the world’s salvation and this man’s salvation may be 
accomplished.” These were the cords that bound 
_ Him to the altar. Let us never forget that Judas 
with his treachery, and rulers with their hostility, and 
Pilate with his authority, and the soldiers with their 
nails, and centurions with their lances, and the grim 
figure of Death itself with its shaft would have been 
all equally powerless against Christ, if it had not been 
His loving will to die on the Cross for each of us. 

Therefore, brethren, as we hear this voice, let us 
discern in it the tones which warn us of the danger 
of yielding to inclination and stifling His rebukes, till 


THE DISMISSAL OF JUDAS. 295 


He abandons us for the moment in despair; let us 
hear in it the pathetic voice of a Brother who knows 
all our weaknesses and has felt our emotions ; let us _ 
hear the voice of sovereign authority which uses its 
enemies for its purposes, and is never loftier than when 
it is most lowly, whose cross is His throne of glory, 
whose exaltation is His deepest humiliation, and let 
us hear a love which, discerning each of us through 
all the ages and the crowds, went willingly to the 
Cross, because He willed that He should be our 
Saviour. 

And, seeing that time is short, and the future pre- 
carious, and delay may darken into loss and rejection, 
let us take these words as spoken to us in another 
sense, and hear in them the warning that “ to-day, if 
ye will hear His voice,” we harden not our hearts, 
And when He says to us, in regard of repentance and 
faith, and Christian consecration and service, “That 
thou doest, do quickly,’ let us answer, “I made 
haste and delayed not, but made haste to keep Thy 
commandments,” 


xxx. 


Salvation and Destruction continuous 
Processes. 


“THE preaching of the Cross is to them that perish foolishness, 
but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.”—1 Cor. 
i, 18. 


-.S--go|HE starting-point of my remarks now 

Noy is the observation that a slight vari- 
WW aN x! ation ot rendering, which will be 
AYA] found in the Revised Version, brings 
<=“ out the true meaning of these words, 
Instead of reading “them that perish” and “ug 
which are saved,” we ought to read “them that 
are perishing,” and “us which are being saved.” 
That is to say, the Apostle represents the two con- 
trasted conditions, not so much as fixed states, either 
present or future, but rather as processes which are 
going on, and are manifestly, in the present, incom- 
plete. That opens some very solemn and intensely 
practical considerations. 

Then I may further note that this antithesis in- 
cludes the whole of the persons to whom the Gospel 
is preached. In one or other of these two classes 
they all stand. Further, we have to observe that the 
consideration which determines the class to which 


Fal 


SALVATION AND DESTRUCTION. 297 


men belong is the attitude which they respectively 
take to the preaching of the Cross. If it be, and 
because it is, “foolishness” to some, they belong to 
the catalogue of the perishing. If it be, and 
because it is, “the power of God” to others, they 
belong to the class of those who are in process of 
being saved. 

So, then, we have the ground cleared for two or 
three very simple, but, as it seems to me, very im- 
portant thoughts. 

I.—I desire, first, to look at the two contrasted con- 
ditions, “ perishing ” and “ being saved.” 

Now we shall best, I think, understand the force of 
the darker of these two terms if we first ask what is 
the force of the brighter and more radiant. If we 
understand what the Apostle means by: “ saving” and 
“salvation,” we shall understand, also, what he means 
by “ perishing.” 

If, then, we turn for a moment to Scripture analogy 
and teaching, we find that the threadbare word 
“salvation,” which we all take it for granted that we 
understand, and which, like a well-worn coin, has been 
so passed from hand to hand that it scarcely remains 
legible—that well-worn word “salvation” starts from 
a double metaphorical meaning. It means either, 
and is used for both, being healed or being made safe. 
In the one sense it is often employed in the Gospel 
narratives of our Lord’s miracles, and it involves the 
metaphor of a sick man and his cure. In the other it 
involves the metaphor of a man in peril and his 
deliverance and security. The negative side, then, of 
the Gospel idea of salvation is the making whole from 
a disease, and the making safe from a danger. Nega- 


298 : SALVATION AND DESTRUCTION 


tively, it is the removal, from each of us, of the one 
sickness, which is sin; and the one danger, which is 
the reaping of the fruits and consequences of sin, 
in their variety as guilt, remorse, habit, and slavery 
under it, perverted relation to God, a fearful appre- 
hension of penal consequences now, and—if there be — 
a hereafter—then,too. This sickness of soul and these 
perils that threaten life flow from the central fact of 
sin. And salvation consists, negatively, in the sweep- 
ing away of all of these, whether the sin itself, or the 
fatal facility with which we yield to it, or the desola- 
tion and perversion which it brings into all the 
faculties and susceptibilities, or the perversion of rela- 
tion to God, and the consequent evils, here and here- 
after, which throng around the evil-doer. The sick 
man is healed, and the man in peril is set in safety. 
But, besides that, there is a great deal more. Our 
cure is incomplete till the full tide of health follows 
convalescence. When God saves, He does not only 
bar up the iron gate, through which the hosts of evil 
rush out upon the defenceless soul, but He flings wide 
the golden gate, through which the glad troops of 
blessings and of graces flock around the delivered 
spirit, and enrich it with all joys and with all beauties. 
So the positive side of salvation is the investiture of 
the saved man with throbbing health through all his 
veins, and the strength that comes from a divine life, 
It is the bestowal upon the delivered man of every- 
thing that he needs for blessedness and for duty. All 
good conferred, and every evil banned back into its 
dark den, such is the Christian conception of salvation. 
It is much that the negative should be accomplished, 
but it is little in comparison with the rich fulness of 


CONTINUOUS PROCESSES. 299 


positive endowments, of happiness, and of holiness 
which make an integral part of the salvation of God. 

This, then, being the one side, what about the other ? 
If this be salvation, its precise opposite is the Scrip- 
tural idea of “perishing.” Utter ruin lies in the word, 
the entire failure to be what God meant a man to be. 
That is in it, and no contortions of arbitrary interpre- 
tation can take that solemn significance out of the 
dreadful expression. If salvation be the cure of the 
sickness, perishing is the fatal end of the unchecked 
disease. If salvation be the deliverance from the 
outstretched claws of the harpy evils that crowd about 
the trembling soul, then perishing is the fixing of their 
poisoned talons into their prey, and their rending of it 
into fragments. 

Of course that is metaphor, but no metaphor can 
be half so dreadful as the plain, prosaic fact that the 
exact opposite of the salvation, which consists in the 
healing from sin, and the deliverance from danger, 
and in the endowment with all gifts good and beauti- 
ful, is the Christian idea of the alternative “perish- 
ing.” Then, it means the disease running its course. 
It means the dangers laying hold of the man in peril. 
It means the withdrawal, or the non-bestowal, of all 
which is good, whether it be good of holiness or good 
of happiness. It does not mean, as it seems to me, 
the cessation of conscious existence, any more than 
salvation means the bestowal of conscious existence. 
But he who perishes knows that he has perished, even 
as he knows himself while he is in the process of 
perishing. Therefore, we have to think of the gradual 
fading away from consciousness and dying out of a 
life, of many things beautiful and sweet and gracious, 


300. | SALVATION AND DESTRUCTION 


of the gradual increase of distance from Him, union 
with whom is the condition of true life, of the gradual 


sinking into the pit of utter ruin, of the gradual — 


increase of that awful death in life and life in death 
in which living consciousness makes the conscious 
subject aware that he is lost: lost to God, lost to 
himself. 

Brethren, it is no part of my business to enlarge 
upon such awful thoughts, but the brighter the light 
of salvation, the darker the eclipse of ruin which 
rings it round. This, then, is the first contrast. 

II—Now note, secondly, the progressiveness of 
both members of the alternative. 

All states of heart or mind tend to increase, by the 
very fact of continuance. Life is a process, and every 
part of a spiritual being is in living motion and con- 
tinuous action in a given direction. So the law for 
the world, and for every man in it, in all regions ot 
his life, quite as much as in the religious, is, “to 
him that hath shall be given, and he shall have 
abundance.” 

Look, then, at this thought of the process by which 
these two conditions become more and more con- 
firmed, consolidated, and complete. Salvation is a 
progressive thing. In the New Testament we have 
that great idea looked at from three points of view. 
Sometimes it is spoken of as having been accomplished 
in the past in the case of every believing soul—* Ye 
have been saved” is said more than once. Sometimes 
it is spoken cf as being accomplished in the present 
—“Ye are saved” is said more than once. And 
sometimes it is relegated to the future—* Now is your 
salvation nearer than when ye believed,” and the like. 


| 
: 
| 


CONTINUOUS PROCESSES. 301 


But there are a number of New Testament passages 
which coincide with this text in regarding salvation 
as, not the work of any one moment, but as a 
continuous operation running through life; not a 
point either in the past, present, or future, but a 
continued life. As, for instance, “The Lord added to 
the Church daily those that were being saved.” “By 
one offering He hath perfected for ever them that are 
being sanctified.” And in a passage in the Second 
Epistle to the Corinthians, which, in some respects, is 
an exact parallel to that of my text, we read of the 
preaching of the Gospel as being a “savour of Christ 
in them that are being saved, and in them that are 
perishing.” 

So the process of being saved is going on as long as 
a Christian man lives in this world ; and every one 
who professes to be Christ’s follower ought, day by 
day, to be growing more and more saved, more fully 
filled with that Divine spirit, more entirely the 
conqueror of his own lusts and passions and evil, 
more and more invested with all the gifts of holiness 
and of blessedness which Jesus Christ is ready to 
bestow upon us. 

Ah! brethren, that notion of a progressive salva- 
tion at work in all true Christians has all but faded 
away out of the beliefs, as it has all but disappeared 
from the experience, of hosts of you that call your- 
selves Christ’s followers, and are not a bit further on 
than you were ten years ago; are no more healed of 
your corruptions (perhaps less, for relapses are 
dangerous) than you were then; have not advanced 
any further into the depths of God than when you 
first got a glimpse of Him as loving, and your Father, 


* a 
4 
4 
‘ 


802 SALVATION AND DESTRUCTION 


in Jesus Christ; are contented to linger, like some 
weak band of invaders in a strange land, on the 
borders and coasts, instead of pressing inwards and 
making it all your own. Growing Christians—may I 
venture to say ?—are not the majority of professing 
Christians. 

And, on the other side, as certainly, there is progres- 
sive deterioration and approximation to disintegration 
and ruin. How many men there are listening to me 
now who were far nearer being delivered from their 
sins when they were lads than they have ever 
been since! How many in whom the sensibility to 
the message of salvation has disappeared, in whom the 
world has ossified their consciences and their hearts, 
in whom there is a more entire and unstruggling 
submission to low things and selfish things and 
worldly things and wicked things than there used to 
be! I am sure that there are people in this place 
to-day who were far better, and far happier, when 


they were poor and young, and could still thrill 


with generous emotion and tremble at the Word of 
God, than they are now. Why! there are some of 
you that could no more bring back your former 


loftier impulses, and compunction of spirit and throbs _ 


of desire towards Christ and His salvation, than you 
could bring back the birds’ nests or the snows of your 
youthful years. You are perishing—in the very pro- 
cess of going down and down and down into the dark. 

Now, notice, the Apostle treats these two classes as 
covering the whole ground of the hearers of the 
Word, and as alternatives. If not in the one class, we 
are in the other. Ah! brethren, life is no level plane, 
but a steep incline on which there is no standing still, 


CONTINUOUS PROCESSES. $03 


and if you try to stand still, down you go, Hither up 
or down must be the motion. If you are not more of 
a Christian than you were a year ago, you are less 
If you are not more saved—for there is a degree of 
comparison—if you are not more saved, you are less 
saved, 

Now, do not let that go over your head as pulpit 
thunder, meaning nothing. It means you, and 
whether you feel or think it or not, one or other of 
these two solemn developments is at this moment 
going on in you. And that is not a thought to be put 
lightly on one side. 

Further, note what a light such considerations as 
these, that salvation and perishing are vital processes 
—“going on all the time,” as the Americans say— 
throw upon the future. Clearly the two processes are 
incomplete here. You get the direction of the line, 
but not its natural termination. And thus a heaven 
and a hell are demanded by the phenomena of grow- 
ing goodness and of growing badness which we see 
round about us. The arc of the circle is partially 
swept. Are the ccmpasses going to stop at the point 
where the grave comes in? By no means, Round 
they will go, and will ccmplete the circle. But that 
is not all. The necessity for progress will persist after 
death; and all threugh the duration of immortal 
being, gcodness, Llessedness, holiness, godlikeness, 
will, on the one hand, grow in brighter lustre; and on 
the other, alienaticn from God, loss of the noble 
elements of the nature, and all the other doleful 
darknesses which’ attend that conception of a lost 
man, will increase likewise. And so, two people, sitting 
side by side in these pews to-day, may start from the 


304 SALVATION AND DESTRUCTION 


same level, and by the operation of the one principle 
may the one rise and rise and rise till he is lost in 
God, and so finds himself, and the other sink and sink 
and sink into the obscurity of woe and evil that lies 
as a possibility beneath every human life, 

III.—And now, lastly, notice the determining 
attitude to the Cross which settles the class to which 
we belong. 

Paul, in my text,is explaining his reason for not 
preaching the Gospel with what he calls “the words 
of man’s wisdom,” and he says, in effect, “It.would be 
of no use if I did, because what settles whether the 
Cross shall look ‘ foolishness’ to a man or not is the 
man’s whole moral condition, and what settles whether 
a man shall find it to be ‘the power of God’ or not is 
whether he has passed into the region of those that 
are being saved.” 

So there are two thoughts suggested which sound 
as if they were illogically combined, but which yet are 
both true. It is true that men perish, or are saved, 
because the Cross is to them respectively “foolish- 
ness” or “ the power of God.” And the other thing is 
true, that the Cross is to them “foolishness,” or “the 
power of God,” because respectively they are perishing 
or being saved. That is not putting the cart before 
the horse, but both aspects of the truth are true. 

If you see nothing in Jesus Christ, and His death 
for us all, except “foolishness,” something unfit to do 
you any good, and unnecessary to be taken into 
account in your lives—oh! my friends, that is the 
condemnation of your eyes, and nét of the thing you 
look at. If a man, gazing on the sun at twelve o'clock 
on a June day, says to me, “It is not bright,’ the only 


CONTINUOUS PROCESSES. 805 


thing I have to say to him is, “ Friend, you had better 
go to an oculist.” And if to us the Cross is “ foolish- 
ness,” it is because already the process of “ perishing ” 
has gone so far that it has attacked our capacity of 
recognising the wisdom and love of God when we 
see them. 

But, on the other hand, if we clasp that Cross in 
simple trust, we find that it is the power which saves 
us out of all sins, sorrows, and dangers, and “shall 
save us,” at last, “into His heavenly kingdom.” 

Dear friends, that message leaves no man exactly as 
itfound him. My words, I feel, to-day have been very 
poor, set by the side of the greatness of the theme; 
but, poor as they have been, you will not be exactly 
the same man after them, if you have listened to them, 
as you were before. The difference may be very im- 
perceptible, but it will be real. There will be one more, 
almost invisible, film over the eyeball; one more thin 
layer of wax on the ear; one more fold of insensibility 
round heart and conscience—or else some yielding to 
the love; some finger put out to take the salvation; 
some lightening of the pressure of the sickness ; some 
removal of the peril and the danger. The same sun 
blinds diseased eyes and gladdens sound ones. The 
same fire melts wax and hardens clay. “This Child 
is set for the rise and fall of many in Israel.” “To 
the one He is the savour of life unto life; to the other 
He is the savour of death unto death.” Which is He, 
for He is one of them, to you? 


XXXE 
The Faithful theart and the Present 
God. 


“T HAVE set the Lord always before me : because He is at my right 
hand, I shall not be moved.”—PsaLM xvi, 8. 


‘%\--S-=75 HIS psalm touches the very high-water 
| mark of the religious life in two 
aspects; its ardent devotion and its 


* beyond the grave. These two are 
be ied as cause and effect, since on my text 
follows this great “therefore ”—“ Therefore my heart 
is glad, and my glory rejoiceth; my flesh, also, shall 
rest in hope, for Thou wilt not leave my soul in 
the grave, neither wilt Thou suffer Thy Holy One to 
see corruption.” So this ancient singer speaks to us 
across the centuries, and bids us ask ourselves 
whether we, with all the blaze of light of a far fuller, 
more blessed, and heart-touching and soul-satisfying 
revelation of God than he had, can place ourselves by 
his side, and take for ourselves his grand declaration, 
“T have set the Lord always before me,” and, there- 
fore, “ because He is at my right hand, I shall not be 
moved,” 


clear certainty of eternal blessedness — 


. 
a 


THE FAITHFUL HEART AND THE PRESENT GOD. 307 


There are three things then here—the effort of 
faith; the Ally whom the effort brings; and the 
courageous stability which His presence ensures. 

I—The effort of faith: “I have set the Lord 
always before me.” 

The very language expresses for us the thought 
that it took a dead lift of conscious effort for the 
Psalmist to keep himself continually in touch with 
that unseen God. This is the very essence of true 
religion, for what is our religion if it is not the 
turning of our hearts continually, amidst, and from 
amidst, all the trivialities of this poor, low planet up 
to Him, and the realizing—by a conscious effort of 
an outgoing soul towards Him which is winged by ~ 
desire, and impelled by a sense of need—of the thrill- 
ing and calming presence of Him who. is invisible ? 

We talk about being Christians; we profess, some 
of us, to be religious men. Let us bring our preten- 
sions to this simple test: Is the conscious effort of our 
lives directed with a frequency, which may deserve to 
be called habit, to the realization, amidst our daily 
duties, of that Divine presence ? 

Mark how the Psalmist came to this effort. It was 
because his whole soul clave to God, with the intelli- 
gent and reasonable conviction and apprehension that 
in God alone was all that he needed. No man will ever 
seek to bring himself into the presence of that Father, 
unless he knows that he can sun himself in the presence. 
If it is only a great Taskmaster’s eye which we think is 
resting upon us, we shall crouch to hide from it rather 
than court it. But the Psalmist tells us how he came 
to make the attempt, and to carry it through all the 
changes of his life—*to set the Lord always before 

20* 


3808 THE FAITHFUL HEART AND THE PRESENT GOD. 


him.” For what goes before is this: “I have said 
unto the Lord, Thou art my Lord; my good is none 
but Thee . . . the Lord is the portion of mine 
inheritance, and” . . . (therefore) “I have a 
goodly heritage,” having Him for the portion of mine 
inheritance, and of my cup. And because thus he 
felt that all his blessedness was enwrapped in that 
one Divine Person, and that, whatsoever might call 
itself and be good, in some subordinate fashion, and as 
meeting some lower mental or material necessities, 
there was only one real good for him, satisfying all 
the depth and circumference of his being. It was 
only because this was his rooted conviction that he 
grudged every moment in which he was not living in 
the light of that countenance, and feeling the worth 


of the treasure which he possessed in God. But we - 


are often actually ignorant, so to speak, of what we 
habitually know, and often without the conscious 
realization of the possession (which is the only real 
possession) of the riches that are most truly ours. If 
a man does not think about his wife and his children, 
it is for the time being all one as if they did not exist. 
If he does not think about God and His love, it is all 
one as if he had not Him and it. If we truly are 
knit to Him by inward sentiments of dependence, 
thankfulness, love, and obedience, our hearts will not 
be satisfied, unless we make the effort to reach our 
hands through all the shadows to grasp the reality, as 
a man might thrust his fist through some drum, with 
thin paper in it, in order to clutch some treasure 
lying beyond. 

“T have set the Lord always before me,” is the 
voice of true love, and true love is true religion. If 


— 


THE FAITHFUL HEART AND THE PRESENT GOD. 309 


we can count up the number of times to-day in, which 
we have thought about God—and I am afraid some 
of us could do it very easily—we have thought about 
Him too little. “I have set the Lord always before 
me,” like a long band of light running through the 
whole life. But in the lives of far too many so-called 
Christians the points of light are dim and far apart, 
and sending little illumination into the dark intervals, 
as in some ill-lighted back street. 

The effort of faith is the essence of religion, and we 
have no right to call ourselves Christians unless we 
can say in some real measure, “I have set the Lord” 
—for it took a dead lift to do it—* always before me.” 

II.—Notice the ally of faith. 

I suppose that the second portion of my text is to 
be interpreted as being the consequence of the effort. 
“He is at my right hand.” Would He have been 
David, if you had not set Him there? No! Of 
course, apart from effort there would have been that 
real sustained presence of God without which no life 
is possible, nor any existence. For I believe, for my 
part, that when we talk about Omnipresence we mean 
that where God is not nothing can be; and that this 
influence, which is His real presence, “preserves the 
stars from wrong,” and keeps in life every living 
thing; so as that it is the simplest and deepest truth 
“in Him we,” and all creatures, “live and move and 
have our being.” But that is not what the Psalmist 
means. He is thinking of a presence a great deal 
more intimate, and of the communication of blessings 
a great deal more select and precious than creatural 
life, when he speaks about the presence of God at his 
right hand, as the direct result of his own definite, 


810 THE FAITHFUL HEART AND THE PRESENT GOD. 


conscious, and habitual effort to keep Him there. He 
means that by the turning of his thoughts to God, 
and the effort he makes—the effort of faith, imagi- 
nation, love, and desire—to bring himself as close as 
he can to the great heart of the Father, he realizes 
that presence at his side in an altogether different 
manner from that in which it is given to stones and 
rocks and birds and beasts and godless men. 

That Divine presence is the source of all strength 
and blessedness. “At my right hand”; then I stand 
at His left, and if I stand at His left I stand close 
under the arm that carries the shield, and the shield 
will be cast around me, and stretched above my head 
to protect me. “At my right hand”; then He is not 
only my Ally in the fight, but He stands close by my 
instrument of activity, to direct my work, so that I 


can 
“Tabour on at Thy command, 
And offer all my works to Thee.” 


“At my right hand”; then He is my Protector, my 
Ally, and Director of my work, and He lays His 
strong, gentle hand upon my little, feeble one, and 
puts deftness into its fingers and power into its 
muscles, as the prophet did when he laid his brown, 
strong hand on the thin fingers of the dying king, to 
help him to draw his bow. So God stands at our 
right hand, to defend us in peril, to direct us in effort, 
and to impart to us power for toil and service. Thus 
blessed, real, communicative of all needful good, and 
bringing it all with Himself, through His presence 
realized by the effort of a loving faith, God stands at 
our right hand, and we are blessed and safe if He be 
there, 


THE FAITHFUL HEART AND THE PRESENT GOD. 3811 


Solitude is no experience for a true, God-loving 
heart. We are least alone when we are most alone, 
for then, if we are His, we may most fully realize His 
presence. So if any of you are disposed sometimes 
to say that the road is dark and long and rough, and 
you have to tread it unaccompanied, “set the Lord 
always before” you, and, with Him at your “right 
hand,” He and you will be—I was going to say, 
enough for one another, and, at any rate, will be— 
too many for all opposers. “I was left alone, and 
I saw this great vision.” I was left alone, and God 
came to keep me company. That may be the ex- 
perience of every soul, 

IIl.—Lastly, notice the courageous stability of 
faith. 

Because He is “at my right hand, I shall not be 
moved.” Well, that is true all round, in regard of all 
the things which may move and shake a man. If we 
have the felt presence of God with us, making sun- 
shine in our lives, think how it will keep us from being 
unduly moved by our own emotions, fluctuations, 
hopes, passions. Hope and fear will equally be toned 
down; calmness will be given to us instead of agita- 
tions; we shall not be tossed about by every wind of 
desire, nor beaten about by every surge of temptation ; 
but, anchored on Him, we may ride out the storm, 
and, safe behind that breakwater which keeps the 
force and weight of the wild ocean off us, we may 
feel but a modified and calm pressure from storms 
that otherwise would shake us from our composure. 
The secret of a quiet heart—which is a very different 
thing from a stagnant one—is to keep ever near 
God, Leaning upon Him, we shall not be shaken as 


812 THE FAITHFUL HEART AND THE PRESENT GOD, 


a 


we otherwise would, and shall be masters of our- 
selves; and if we are masters of ourselves, nothing 
outside of us will much move us. “ His heart is fixed, 
trusting in the Lord.” In everything, by prayer and 
thanksgiving, make God present to yourselves, and 
yourselves present to God, and “the peace of God; 
which passeth understanding, shall keep your hearts 
and minds.” 

In like manner, if we have a present God, we shall 
not be moved by circumstances. There will be a 
wholesome and wise obstinacy, like that displayea by 
the Apostle when he said, “Bonds and afflictions 
abide me, but none.of these move me; neither count 
I,my life dear to myself,” in order that I may carry 
out to the end, whatever that end may be, the mission 
which I have received of the Lord. And depend 
upon it that, if we live, taking counsel from our 
Father in heaven, and realizing, as we may do, His 
presence with us, and the continual communication, 
by underground channels, of His grace to us, the 
world, with all its changes, will not much affect us. 
Like those disciples of whom we read in connection 
with Paul’s wholesome obstinacy, “ when he would not 
be persuaded,” we cease, saying “The will of the Lord 
be done.” The world will let you alone if it finds out 
that it cannot shake your purpose nor induce you 
to swerve from the path of duty, either by flashing — 
before you pleasures or by frowning at you with 
threats and sorrows. 

How quietly we may live above the storms if only 
we live in God! Some workmen in London in the 
last fogs happened to be engaged in repairing the 
weathercock upon a tall steeple, and when they got 


THE FAITHFUL HEART AND THE PRESENT GOD. 313 


to the top they found that they were in the sunshine, 
with blue sky above them, and all the noise of the 
city below their feet, there in the blackness. If 
you climb high enough, you will be far above the 
reach of the agitations and distractions of this life. 
Because “He is at my right hand,I shall not be 
moved.” 

But there is a yet more wonderful and higher 
application of the words, which results from the closing 
verses of this psalm. For the Psalmist passes beyond 
this confidence that he shall not be moved amid all 
the changes and possibilities of earthly life, and feels 
certain that even the great change from life to death 
will not move him, in so far as his union with God is 
concerned. It is beautiful to see that, whether the 
doctrines of a future life and of a Resurrection were 
part of the common religious possession of his age 
or no, we catch in this closing strain of the psalm 
the religious consciousness of the singer in the very 
act of grasping at the truth, which, whether revealed 
or no to his generation, was, at all events, very 
imperfectly revealed. Why was he so sure that 
Death and Sheol—the grave and corruption—were 
things that he had nothing to do with? Because he 
felt that God was at his right hand. If you 
translate that into more abstract terms, it is just this 
—a realization of true communion and intercourse 
with God is the real guarantee that the man who has 
it shall never die, and whosoever can feel “the Lord 
is at my right hand,” may look forward into all the 
darkness of death and the grave, and say: “These 
have nothing to do with me. They may touch the 
husk; they may do what they like with the outside 


4 
814. THE FAITHFUL HEART AND THE PRESENT GO, 


shell and wrappage, but I shall not be moved.” Ey 
when that which people call me is laid in the grav. 
and sees corruption, Thou wilt show me the path c* 
life. If here on earth we are able, by the effort c 
faith, to set Him at our right hand, the movemen 
from earth to a dim beyond shall only be this, that 
instead of His standing at our right hands, our Ally 
and Director, we shall stand at His, and there find 
how true the Psalmist’s confidence was, “At Thy 
right hand there are pleasures for evermore.” 


@57 RS *A}3L 


89/12/12 33357 « 


roup 


ma 


win 


| 


rah 


| 


/b886r8z0q 
J31U89 e219 


cl 


— 


